Denmark Ending Letter Deliveries Is a Sign of the Digital Times (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0178811568
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/21/1928230/denmark-ending-letter-deliveries-is-a-sign-of-the-digital-times
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3v37plv2edo
> The steep decline in letter volumes has been driven largely by digitalization, and PostNord announced in March that it will cease letter services at the end of the year. It will bring to an end four centuries of letter deliveries by the state-owned operation. A third of its workforce is being let go, as it sheds 2,200 positions in its loss-making letter arm. Instead it will focus on its profitable parcel business, creating 700 new roles. "Danes hardly receive any letters anymore. It's been going down for years and years," says Kim Pedersen, chief of PostNord Denmark. "They're receiving one letter a month on average, it's not a lot." "On the contrary, Danes love to shop online," he adds. "Global e-commerce is growing significantly, and we are moving with it."
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> Fifteen years ago, PostNord operated several enormous letter-sorting facilities, but now there's just one on the western outskirts of Copenhagen. Since 2000, the volume of letters the business handles has declined by more than 90%, from around 1.4 billion to 110 million last year, and it continues to fall rapidly. As PostNord prepares to cease letter deliveries, 1,500 of its red post boxes are being removed from Danish streets. However, few locals in the capital appear to use them much.
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> From email and cashless mobile payments, to digital health cards carried by smartphone, there's an app for almost everything in Denmark - and it's one of the world's most digitalized nations, second only to South Korea, according to the OECD's 2023 Digital Government Index. The Danish government has embraced a "digital by default" policy, and for more than a decade correspondence with the public has been carried out electronically. "We are facing this natural evolution of a digitalized society, earlier than maybe some other countries," Mr Pedersen explains. "In Denmark, we are maybe five or 10 years ahead."
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> The high cost of sending a letter in Denmark is also a contributing factor behind its decline. In 2024, a new law opened up the postal market to private competition and took away its exemption from the country's 25% rate of VAT, so the price of a PostNord stamp jumped to 29 Danish krone ($4.55) per letter. "That made [volumes] drop even further faster," Mr Pedersen points out.
The report notes that private firm DAO will take over nationwide letter deliveries in Denmark after PostNord exits. However, concerns remain that elderly citizens and rural residents may struggle with fewer post boxes and reduced service quality. Both the advocacy group DaneAge and the 3F Postal Union warn the transition could disproportionately affect vulnerable populations.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3v37plv2edo
postal letter drop (Score:3)
While I doubt the US could do this, there should however be an adjustment to how and when postal mail is delivered. Daily deliveries should not be needed. Once or twice a week should work for most people. For those who want next day or packages use one the other next day services. USPS should be letter only, No bulk mail, no occupant mail.
Re: (Score:2)
> Daily deliveries should not be needed. Once or twice a week should work for most people.
Agreed, though bill/reply due dates would need to be adjusted accordingly to account for the slower delivery schedule
> For those who want next day or packages use one the other next day services.
FedEx and UPS, etc... are not required to deliver to every/any address, like USPS is.
> USPS should be letter only, No bulk mail, no occupant mail.
Senders have to pay for those to be delivered, so they generate revenue. Still, seems like once a week for those would be fine - a dedicated junk mail day, perhaps.
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> USPS should be letter only, No bulk mail, no occupant mail.
So you want to tank the USPS? The total annual revenue for the post office is $80 billion. Bulk mail accounts for $15 billion of that.
Re: postal letter drop (Score:2)
Yes. And they should pay taxes.
Re: (Score:2)
Bulk mail is where USPS makes what money they make. Drop that, and they're bankrupt within a year.
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> While I doubt the US could do this, there should however be an adjustment to how and when postal mail is delivered. Daily deliveries should not be needed. Once or twice a week should work for most people.
Canada needs to do this too. Postal unions are making restructuring very difficult.
Re: (Score:1)
yeah, I think Canada Post is going to go the way of Denmark....not if but when.
I just don't know how Canada Post can hand out raises when profits are falling. There aren't enough Golden parachutes for all union employees.
It's all bizarre to me.
Re: (Score:2)
> Daily deliveries should not be needed.
How else will I get five trees worth of daily junk mail to power my incinerator?
Running it into the ground (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems like just a desperate cost-cutting measure to me.
They can blame digital mail all they want but the background is that PostNord, and especially the Danish part of it, is infamous for having been severely mismanaged and bleeding money for many years.
Unfortunately, the Danish service had merged with the privatised former Swedish postal service, so the Danish arm is dragging down the Swedish one as well. They are still delivering letters in Sweden but now only every other day.
Because of how crappy it has become (in more than one way), it has the nickname "PostMord" ("Post murder") over here.
multiple-delivery-per-day history in USA (Score:1)
On a somewhat-related note, many cities had multiple mail deliveries per day to residences in the first half of the 20th century and for businesses well into the last half.
[1]Daily Deliveries Down to One - 1950 [si.edu]
Also, [2]A Short History of Home Mail Delivery [psmag.com] (ignore the bit about Saturday delivery ending in 2013 in the USA, it didn't end).
[1] https://postalmuseum.si.edu/daily-deliveries-down-to-one-1950
[2] https://psmag.com/economics/a-short-history-of-mail-delivery-52444/
Wait Wait Wait (Score:2)
If the task still needs doing and a private company is taking on the mantle, as well as the fact that Post Nord will continue with parcel delivery, that means that this is not about digitization and obsolescence of snail mail. This is about cost cutting and nothing else.
How do they get boxes? (Score:2)
If they like on-line shopping already, can they arrange to have the shopping shippers handle the minor letter load for whatever fees?
Hope US does not follow (Score:2)
I'd be fine with stopping Saturday delivery. I don't do nearly as much snail as I used to, but Christmas & other holidays + Birthdays would not be the same without cards for me. And the IRS still likes its mail methods along with a few businesses. That alone may keep US mail going.
Re: (Score:2)
As long the tax payers are fine with it not being user-pays, and instead being almost entirely tax payer funded.
Nothing stopping people sending you cards via UPS or Fedex. I'm sure USPS has courier services too.
Past time run the USA too. (Score:2)
They should probably do that here too. If certified mail, overnight, or parcels were the only options here. Anything actually worth sending will still be sent. $7-$12 vs $0.78 isn't going prevent that. 95% of at the "letter" mail I receive are ads and such that got directly in the recycle bin. Supposedly it is all that junk mail that keeps the $0.78 stamp viable. But in reality next to no one sends letters, except for maybe once or twice a year at most. Sure some people send a holiday cards to a bunch of p
Did they consider making snail mail better? (Score:2)
Just asking for a friend without an email address...
Re: (Score:2)
Snail mail is more or less as good as it's going to get, the problem is that it's expensive to keep it that way. Especially if they have to earn on one letter what they used to earn on 10.
Re: (Score:2)
But it's a fundamentally unfair competition because email was inadvertently designed to pretend it was free. In the form of a joke, I blame Al Gore for telling them not to worry about the money. Or maybe a worse joke to compare it to nuclear power, which was supposed to produce electricity that would be too cheap to meter...
The real cost of email isn't economic, however. It's attention. So I say convicted spammers should receive prison sentences long enough for them to REAL all of the spam they sent. Out lo
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, I confess that this time I deliberately grabbed for the FP because I have something to say and I was able to figure out a short joke version using the same Subject. Yeah, it's a lame joke, but y'all should know me by now. I couldn't make a good joke if I read a 500-page textbook on humor. (It's called Getting the Joke by Oliver Double. Second edition of what must be the primary textbook of his university class on standup comedy, though he makes it clear the most important part of the course is the i
Re: (Score:2)
> Okay, I confess that this time I deliberately grabbed for the FP because I have something to say and I was able to figure out a short joke version using the same Subject. Yeah, it's a lame joke, but y'all should know me by now. I couldn't make a good joke if I read a 500-page textbook on humor. (It's called Getting the Joke by Oliver Double. Second edition of what must be the primary textbook of his university class on standup comedy, though he makes it clear the most important part of the course is the impractical part.)
> Now for my typically crazy solution approach. Did Denmark consider making snail mail better by linking email addresses to physical addresses? As I imagine it, it should be an opt-in system with defaults against bulk mail--and of course STRONG security defenses against spammer abuse. The sociopathic spammers love harvesting any source of validated email addresses.
> So the basic idea would be to register your email address on the official website that links it to your snail mail address. Fundamental design is one-way, but if the mail scanner sees an email address, then it can print a little address sticker and cover up the email address. (Of course you could register more email addresses if you want to.) Once a year the post office would send a confirmation snail mail to make sure the snail mail is still valid and to remind you of the registration. (But I think the confirmations should be randomized in a way to optimize the confirmations without overloading the carriers at one time.)
> Default would be first-class or registered mail only, though I suppose some people would want an option to permit bulk snail mail, too. I sure wouldn't, but some people are crazy... And physical spam has never been the same kind of problem as spam email because the marginal cost can't pretend to be zero.
> We now return you to your regularly scheduled Slashdot axe grinding? My axe has done been ground?
I'm trying to see the use-case and also how it would increase letter volume and also how doing so isn't the environmentally wrong direction in the first place. So help me out.
You're saying that say... I go to a restaurant and they're like "would you like our weekly coupons mailed to you", you could give them your e-mail address instead of your street address, and you'd get the coupons. Right? Why wouldn't you just have them e-mail you? Or... your sister moves to another city and wants to write you a l