> Unfortunately, this seems to be the fundamental nature of communications networks - the story isn't much different for postal mail, fax, email, usenet, facebook. Success seems to kill the network in the end.

Actually, for a variety of reasons I think postal mail is going to be around for a long, long time, which is interesting since it predated the telephone. It could very well morph into "pick up from your local mail depot" for some people though.