The only difference is that you have to send mail to a normal post office address and not a "hostname". Other than that, virtual PO Boxes exist and fulfill your basic requirement of "no one knows my home address", even if some of the behind-the-scenes implementation details aren't exactly the same (latency etc). We're not discussing something new, we're discussing low-level implementation details of an existing idea.

I'm not saying your dream is bad, which is why I didn't respond directly to you. What I'm saying is I don't think it's a novel/interesting idea for a startup to work on as I believe was being implied by the person I replied to. Even if it became a big business (which I doubt since even UPS/Fedex/Mailbox ETC don't have that many postal customers for their own services) it's just too easy for the national postal service to compete with if it was successful.

I think it is a great idea for the postal service to do, but it would be very risky for a startup to do, even by modern startup standards. The existing postal system is a marvel of efficiency already.

> The only difference is that you have to send mail to a normal post office address

Yes, but that's a big difference.

> I don't think it's a novel/interesting idea for a startup to work on

I ever said that, and neither did whiddershins. Not all novel ideas are good ideas for startups.

The internet itself was a very bad idea for a startup when it started out (much too capital intensive). That's why it was done by the government and not by a startup.