> The USPS, libraries, public schools provide basically guaranteed service to anyone, anywhere.
Libraries are a public service. They're free. The people who use them don't have to pay anything for it, which is a boon to those who otherwise couldn't afford it. It's basically a public subsidy for access to books.
The postal service is a business. There isn't supposed to be any subsidy, you pay for it through postage, and they're not doing anything that UPS or FedEx couldn't do just as well. Public libraries don't need a law prohibiting private libraries to keep everyone from abandoning them, but the USPS needs a government monopoly on carrying letters? If the post office was so great then they shouldn't need that -- but then they'd likely fail, because private competitors would do it better and people would stop using USPS.
It's the same thing with public schools. The benefit is that the government pays for them, so no one can say they can't afford to send their kids to school. But that doesn't require the subsidy to go only to schools operated by the government. Give the parents education vouchers and let them choose their school. If the public schools are so great then they'll choose them anyway. The opposition to this comes from people knowing full well that they're not.
The reason for public involvement in the postal service is to ensure parcel and letter carrying to all. I have many friends in rural Montana who would not have parcel or letter service if a strictly profit oriented company were the only delivery service.
Or the price of delivery would be so exorbitant as to be prohibitive. UPS and FedEx only offer delivery to these locations because they see it as a required feature to remain competitive with USPS.
> UPS and FedEx only offer delivery to these locations because they see it as a required feature to remain competitive with USPS.
If it isn't profitable to offer delivery there then they would have no reason to compete for it even now, and if it is then they would do it regardless.
But more to the point, it's possible that in a competitive market there would be different optimal solutions. In a very rural area, rather than sending a mail truck on a fifty mile trek through the wilderness to deliver one parcel, everyone in the area might have a mailbox in the town center and pick up their mail whenever they go into town, because that would be cheaper by enough that people would choose it over the more inefficient/expensive alternative. You can't justify the entire USPS just to avoid that sort of increase in efficiency.
> If it isn't profitable to offer delivery there then they would have no reason to compete for it even now
Incorrect. They are not competing for that service. Rather they extend their networks to match USPS because they wish to attain feature parity with the USPS. It would be annoying to address a package to a U.S. address, take it into FedEx and find they would not deliver it. This is the case with many smaller parcel carriers. The large national carriers wish to be competitive in cost and convenience to USPS.
You can read about USPS's universal service obligation here.
> In a very rural area, rather than sending a mail truck on a fifty mile trek through the wilderness to deliver one parcel, everyone in the area might have a mailbox in the town center and pick up their mail whenever they go into town,
That is in fact generally how it works but even still the postage rates for rural areas are subsidized by urban areas.
> Rather they extend their networks to match USPS because they wish to attain feature parity with the USPS.
But that doesn't even make sense. If it costs more to ship to a particular address, they have no reason to refuse to do it rather than simply charge an amount that causes it to still be profitable and then turn a profit in doing so.
> This is the case with many smaller parcel carriers.
Presumably because they know they don't have any operations there at all, and so the price they would have to charge wouldn't make them competitive with even FedEx and UPS. That proves nothing about whether the bigger carriers wouldn't still do it when they're positioned to offer the most competitive price.
> That is in fact generally how it works but even still the postage rates for rural areas are subsidized by urban areas.
But why is that a good thing? Cross-subsidies are inefficient. People in urban areas can be just as poor as people in rural areas, especially given the higher cost of living. And if you really want a subsidy like that then make it explicit -- and maybe pay for it on the backs of people who can afford it rather than people who can't.
Would these private letter carriers subject themselves to the necessary regulation and government scrutiny necessary to ensure that, for instance, a legally sufficient equivalent to USPS certified mail is available throughout the United States and its possessions? That election mail and other official business is conducted with sufficient speed, caution, and security? Would FedEx be willing to accept the liability and public relations exposure of being directly involved in determining the outcome of a US presidential election?
Or is it more likely that the private carriers would expect and demand a rump Post Office to carry the mail they find unprofitable?
You keep using the word "unprofitable" to describe services that have a higher cost to provide. These things are premium services. Private companies are happy to provide them to anyone willing to pay their costs plus at least the market rate of return, precisely because doing that is profitable.
The example you're using is election mail. That's paid for by the government. How is it possible for the rate they'd have to pay in a competitive market with low margins to make it non-universal and yet it isn't already? If you want to deliver to everybody then you have to pay the cost to deliver to everybody, one way or the other. Subsidizing it through more expensive postage (disproportionately paid for by the poor) seems obviously worse than paying for it through taxes (disproportionately paid for by the wealthy).
The US government does not send election mail, because it does not conduct elections. Elections are conducted by state governments. Election mail should be a free service provided by the US government in exchange for states adopting certain mandates, such as universal voting by mail with no postage assessed to the voter.
Libraries are a public service. They're free. The people who use them don't have to pay anything for it, which is a boon to those who otherwise couldn't afford it. It's basically a public subsidy for access to books.
The postal service is a business. There isn't supposed to be any subsidy, you pay for it through postage, and they're not doing anything that UPS or FedEx couldn't do just as well. Public libraries don't need a law prohibiting private libraries to keep everyone from abandoning them, but the USPS needs a government monopoly on carrying letters? If the post office was so great then they shouldn't need that -- but then they'd likely fail, because private competitors would do it better and people would stop using USPS.
It's the same thing with public schools. The benefit is that the government pays for them, so no one can say they can't afford to send their kids to school. But that doesn't require the subsidy to go only to schools operated by the government. Give the parents education vouchers and let them choose their school. If the public schools are so great then they'll choose them anyway. The opposition to this comes from people knowing full well that they're not.