OT - Grumpy Old Man Thread

[847badgerfan]

Amazon could do it so much better.

[FearlessF]

along with FedEx and the brown truck

[847badgerfan]

along with FedEx and the brown truck

Amazon used to rely on those companies. Not anymore.

[FearlessF]

I suppose Amazon could have simply purchased those companies

[847badgerfan]

They could have, but it was more efficient to hire people away from those companies to start their own shipping arm.

Efficient being the operative word.

[bayareabadger]

Amazon could do it so much better.

And even they sometimes rely on the ole USPS. 

Each year, USPS becomes more of a public service. It even helps make Amazon cheaper in some way. Perhaps one day, private service will eclipse that need totally (the act of sending mail falling out of favor will probably be a massive factor there). But it seems we’re not there yet. 

[Cincydawg]

The USPS has to service areas the others can't, or won't.  I get stuff from Amazon shipped by UPS/Fedex/USPS at times.  I think UPS is HQd here.

[847badgerfan]

And even they sometimes rely on the ole USPS.

Each year, USPS becomes more of a public service. It even helps make Amazon cheaper in some way. Perhaps one day, private service will eclipse that need totally (the act of sending mail falling out of favor will probably be a massive factor there). But it seems we’re not there yet.

Only when the item is not sold/fulfilled by Amazon.

Best Buy, for example, is one of many Amazon vendors who ship on their own. They fulfill out of their closest stores and do their own delivery, within reason.

I just had two TV's delivered by them, from their store in Fort Myers. I purchased through Amazon.

[Cincydawg]

That makes sense, to me.

[betarhoalphadelta]

[SFBadger96]

For centuries "developed" countries have depended on having reliable delivery of the mail. Fully privatizing it could result in it going away if there is no profit in in--more to the point, removing the services that are not profitable. We need to have mail delivery, even if it is not profitable. That is not to say that USPS should handle all or even the bulk of delivery, but it is to say that whether the current USPS is in the right form, we do need a public agency that guarantees the delivery of mail, even when there is no profit in it.

[bayareabadger]

Only when the item is not sold/fulfilled by Amazon.

From a quick read, that doesn’t seem true. It appears USPS to this point still handles a lot of rural and heavy use season stuff. 

I mean, if these private companies could cleanly and efficiently blot out the whole postal service at this point, they would. Few would complain about mail issues because they’d basically never use it. But at the moment they haven’t. They will, probably, and that’ll be cool. But for now, it’s a thing with a use, albeit a clunky one. 

(It would be interesting to see what would happen if Amazon needed to run profitable shipping. But that’s not really the task)

[utee94]

@utee94 , is that the same property the bunghole manager was trying to steal?  At this point, that place either needs an exorcist or a flame-thrower. 

Yeah it's been pretty bad.  I think... hope... we've had our final bad outcomes from all of the fallout, and we'll get to the good stuff now.  We did finally get it back into rentable shape and our new tenant moved in over the weekend.

I'll still probably write a detailed post about all of it, if only to vent, over on the grumpy thread.

[jgvol]

From a quick read, that doesn’t seem true. It appears USPS to this point still handles a lot of rural and heavy use season stuff.

I mean, if these private companies could cleanly and efficiently blot out the whole postal service at this point, they would. Few would complain about mail issues because they’d basically never use it. But at the moment they haven’t. They will, probably, and that’ll be cool. But for now, it’s a thing with a use, albeit a clunky one.

(It would be interesting to see what would happen if Amazon needed to run profitable shipping. But that’s not really the task)

USPS delivers Amazon packages on Sundays.