The U.S. Postal Service Soon to Become Obsolete: Blame Al Gore?

In the near future we may no longer have a U.S. Mail service and we might have Al Gore to blame for that. That´s because in a 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer, Mr. Gore said, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." The Internet has dramatically changed the way that we communicate with each other face to face as well as over long distances. And the United States Postal Service (USPS) is feeling the effects of this indispensable technology.

Postmaster General John Potter made the recent statement that, "With the rise in electronic communications driving profound and permanent changes in the mail mix as we entered the new century, it became clear that this model was being rendered obsolete". Internet communication has done to the post office what the Pony Express did to mail service in 1860: made it faster and more efficient. With a touch of a button everything from lengthy legal documents to "Dear John" letters can be sent and received instantaneously. The institution of on-line payments has led to consumers receiving fewer and fewer bills by direct mail. Thus eliminating the need to wait a week for payments to be sent or received by traditional means.

I personally check my mail at four-day intervals because I rarely receive correspondence through what has come to be known as snail mail. Often even on this schedule I am greeted by an empty mailbox. Although I do miss the novelty of hand written letters, on the rare occasion that one arrives, I reply to it by email because of the fluctuating cost of postage. Unfortunately while USPS heads are focusing on which cartoon characters should be featured on their latest stamp (The Simpson´s were announced as their newest addition this past week), E-mail continues to corner the market.

Did Al Gore know that by taking credit for the creation of the Internet he would be claiming responsibility for bringing down the country´s second largest employer? Probably not. Nevertheless neither Mr. Gore nor the Internet is to blame. The United States Postal Service should have anticipated that in the future we humans would rely on technology to correspond with one another. Did they not watch "The Jetsons"? The USPS powers that be should have developed and patented electronic mail and made it subject to postage fees. If that had been the case the post office would not be in the dire situation that it is currently in. Let´s hope for their sake that the USPS is brainstorming to develop the next technology that will render electronic mail obsolete. Teleportation? It worked for the Jetson's.