After 400 years of service, Denmark’s state-run postal service, PostNord, is cancelling all letter deliveries at the end of 2025, citing a 90% decline in letter volumes since 2000.
In Denmark, bank statements, bills, and correspondence from local authorities are all sent electronically. Public services send communications via a Digital Post app or other platforms.
Postnord will still deliver packages. Letters can be sent via private carrier services.
Coincidentally, I’ve been thinking that the US Postal Service should cancel letter delivery service for years now. It’s an outdated, outmoded system whose time has passed.
Initially, I was thinking USPS should cancel Saturday mail delivery and cut delivery from 6 days a week to 3 days a week. But now I’m thinking, why not cancel letter service altogether? A downsized USPS can continue its package delivery service at a profit, if possible. If not, we have UPS, FedEx, DHL and others to handle this service.
Let’s face it – letter service is no longer needed. Arguments will be made saying that rural customers and the elderly need it. I’m not buying that. 95% of the US population own cell phones and have access to the internet. Those who don’t have options like libraries, coffee shops and schools for free Internet access. Those who refuse to adapt to our society’s technology can either change or deal with the cost & inconvenience of refusing to adapt. I imagine most holdouts will reluctantly adopt online services if the other option is to pay FedEx rates to receive bills and mail checks.
I suspect that my USPS usage is similar to most:
- 95% of the mail I receive is bulk junk mail advertising that I do not want. It goes directly from my mailbox to the trashcan without ever being opened.
- My bills are received and paid electronically.
- Notices from the government for car registrations, taxes, and local services come via letter (although I elect to receive these communications via email whenever possible).
- A few times a year, my mother sends me cards.
- My only outgoing mail is tax payments a few times a year. I can easily pay these online and likely will convert to doing this regardless.
- Personal mail is limited to an occasional card sent or received. These can be replaced with email or sent with gifts.
I like the “idea” of reliable, daily mail service. As a kid, it was a thrill to receive a card, especially with a few dollars enclosed, for my birthday or Christmas. As a young adult, I dreaded the mail because it was all bills and bad news. As an older adult, I reminisce about the Pony Express, which existed more than a century before I was born and have fond memories of some of the friendlier postmen who serviced my homes throughout my life. I like looking at stamps. Old letters hold a warm spot in my heart, even if I have none saved since my big purge in 2018.
But now, let’s face it – I don’t need or want anyone to deliver bulk junk mail to me. Neither do most people, I suspect.
Keeping USPS around because “that’s the way it used to be” is not a good enough reason. I used to have a milkman, a farmer, a butcher and a baker who sold their products to us door-to-door too. Now I have access to multiple grocery stores, farmers markets, Amazon and food delivery services. Times change. So do I.
So when I read about Denmark, I though, “It’s about time.”
This is the first of many to come, I predict.
It’s about time.
This is the first of many to come, I predict.
Pony express. . Denmark cancelling letter delivery service. The USPS should do this too. It’s an antiquated outdated relic that now only supports direct mail marketers (junk mail), obsolete government systems and people who refuse to move forward. There’s a better way. It can be a privately run shipping company. Charge market rates to be competitive. Remove tax funding. Shrink the size etc. it is inevitable. Just like farming and manufacturing a s career option, newspapers, etc.