The future of the mail deliveries.

[octave]

Denmark becomes first country in world to end letter delivery       

 

 

 

 

 

[onetrack]

There goes all my Danish penfriends!!  😄 

[red750]

You just have to use email. Puts the postcard industry out of business.

[Jerry_Atrick]

 Obviously the article thows up a lot more questions than it answers. And of course. snail mail is subject to similar issues. 

 

The problems I see are that individual email servers can be configured differently, and, although I guess a lot more reliable than snail mail, issues of reliability have to be questioned. 

 

For example, the execution of legal court documents - how does one prove the receiver received it. I know summons are served by bailiffs, couriers, and the like, but lesser documents are usually done by mail. Where there is no physical recording of receipt (I can set up my own mail server which will contain my email address and switch off delivery receipts for example). 

 

Forgery of emails is stupidly simple. I can forge the email I receive or purported to send. Who did the forgery - the sender or the receiver? Unlike paper copies (which can too be forged, but a lot easier to pick up), there is no definitive record unles someone deploys a stsndard of file system protection (of which the standard's name I forget). 

 

How does this help scammers. While personal letter usage has undoubtedly dropped off the charts, all government and most financial services correspondence is done by snail mail. You will sometimes receive notification to expect the snail mail and to not treat it as junk mail. This means those scammers that phish via impersonating government  departments - for example the nations revenue service - will have a field day; anbd it will be the more vulnerable to fall prey to it. 

 

Of course, I am sure there are answers to the questions, but I don't trust bureaucrats nor corportate types to think of them until it starts happening. 

 

[octave]

In Denmark, although the government postage (letters) is being discontinued, a private company is still running a letter delivery service but as a private enterprise,  this should satisfy the need for paper-based communications.    

 

A couple of years ago, having the power of attorney over my mother, I had to sell her house interstate.  I thought I would be required to travel interstate; however, I was able to do it remotely. I signed the contract electronically. My understanding is that this is probably more secure than a signature on paper.

 

I think the headline is a little alarmist, but the article does explain that it is only the government postal (letter) service that is ending.  If there is a need or desire to send a piece of paper in an envelope, that can still be done via private companies. 

 

I think the issue is that the cost to post a letter is much greater than the cost of a stamp, and this is subsidised by the parcel service. 

 

These days, I probably only check the mail once a week, if that.

[Jerry_Atrick]

My point is, though, that the government letters - e.g. tax demands, welfare info updates, etc ig being done electronically, may open up a pandoras box of phishing based scamming and unless the government have dep-loyed lots of education and safeguards, there may be an adjustment period where someone had better have the resources to repay victims of fraud... 

 

It is only an anecdotal premonition, of course.

[octave]

I think the point is that these things (government letters, etc.) are already largely being done electronically, and therefore little demand for letter services. In Denmark, it is not a case of having to change these functions to digital because the mail is stopping, but they are stopping the mail because these things are already being done digitally.

 

Even in Australia (and I presume Britain), most of these functions are already done digitally. In the Danish situation, their post office is still delivering parcels, which is a growing and profitable area. I imagine they could also deliver documents.  I think the question is a what point does the traditional postie become unsustainable. 

 

 

[red750]

Maybe it would be better if Australia Post services were curtailed. They are pretty RS and have been for some time.

 

I sent a Christmas card and lotto ticket to my brother-in-law in Queensland. It was fully addressed with street name and number, town and postcode  We have sent cards to the same address for a number of years without problems. This year, it was returned with a big yellow sticker on it - "Post box unknown, Town name."

 

There are lots of complaints on Facebook, presents sent a week or two before Christmas still not delivered, parcels going within Victoria stuck in Perth. It's been the same for years.