tdgeek:

 

I disagree with most posts. Snail mail is being eaten by email, thats not new, so why the bagging? They could have been smart and innovative and canned snail mail 10 years ago, then I imagine most of you bagging it then too? Its a transition, pure and simple. It will be good, then fade, its natural. 

 

There is still a place for normal mail, and infact it is required for things such as address verification for a start. Banks (especially big overseas ones) can do much of their correspondence via mail. I fyou write an overseas bank an email. they don't reply via email, instead they have to write you a letter, as that ismore secure. Also a lot of people don't have email, especially older people. Also it is needed for elections, as well as postal voting. Imagine the government trying to keep all their email lists up to date, as people move between ISPs and mail providers. If it had to be done with couriers, it would require huge fluctuations of staff at certain times of the year, or big delivery delays.

The problem is that couriers are really inefficient, as you have duplicate people all covering the same area zig zagging around the area.  They could have worked out a way to deliver everything in one trip to a house, going past once a day. Not sure how they are dealing with it overseas. The other option could be pickup spots for both mail and parcels, like PO boxes, which avoids having people actually delivering stuff.