There’s been a ton of back and forth on USPS. So since I've got a sleeping baby next to me right now and I'm not getting up, I figured that I'd throw my two cents into the ring.
The question isn't whether or not something is profitable, nor whether or not something is legally mandated (since laws can be changed), it is whether or not USPS is necessary for the economy and for the American government to function. While anecdotal, in the past 3 weeks, 95% of my USPS mail has been junk (advertisements, etc), 2% of it has been financial (401K, etc), 2% of it has been personnel mail (we just brought home an infant so these are welcome cards to items shipped via USPS), and less than 1% of it has been mail sent to me by any government entity.
Is there a better way for the USPS to operate? Sure, we could go back to central receipt of mail by which people who want to pick up their mail would visit the post office (think PO boxes).
Does government correspondence need to go through the mail? No. How many corporations interact with you via mail? More to the point, how many of us select the "green option" and have our financial/electric/etc bills and correspondence sent to us electronically? Email is sufficient for most if not all of our transactions and rather than a physical address.
The question should not be, "do we keep USPS". The question should be "do we keep USPS in its present form". I find it easy to answer the first in the affirmative. But in the second, it's hard to find reason that the way in which USPS operates is the way it should operate moving forward.
Change is essential and while we should not be trying to in act massive change to the USPS system during an election year, we should also not allow ourselves to be tied to a binomial debate by which one side is for getting rid of the USPS and the other side is for keeping the USPS as it is. Unfortunately, a binomial debate is all that our country seems to be able to muster during these times.
Josh is a 4X founder with 3 exits and is an angel investor. You can follow him on Twitter @AlertingMainSt and connect with Josh on LinkedIn.