I wish we would make it possible in the US to use an email address as an address for purposes of things like having a bank account and pick up things like debit cards in person from any branch of that bank if you are traveling, homeless, whatever.

I rarely get any important physical mail these days. But I still run into issues over address problems (ironically, more now that I am back in housing than I ever did while homeless: https://writepay.blogspot.com/2019/02/mailing-address-drama....).

My life is mostly online. I was a military wife for a lot of years and moved around a lot. Lots of people have very physically mobile lives these days.

Yet, we haven't adapted our systems to this reality. We want to tie everyone to a physical address for a long list of things, as if we are plants who can't move from this one location or something.

I don't know what the answer is, but, wow, I sure wish we would come up with better answers than acting like this is still the 1950s and everyone will work for the same company and live in the same house for decades and we can each be found in some particular location all the time.

I wonder if this will be the future of the USPS Online Mailing thing where you get pictures of your mail...

Just register with an email, things are autoscanned and sent to you with a PGP key you provide.

That would be convenient, but it won't happen.

What you will get is a web application you get to sign into to actually get your mail, and you will receive a notification mail in your regular email inbox stating that you have received mail (but not from whom, or what the subject is, because that is privacy sensitive information), so that you know that you should go and get it yourself via the web application.

This is what every digital 'inbox' that isn't email has done thus far. This is in fact exactly what the Dutch government has done with their digital inbox which is intended to replace physical letters from services like the revenue service and municipalities. Thankfully that monstrosity is optional (for now).

The USPS already offers a service that will scan and email the outside of your mail, so you at least can usually see who it is from.

In Australia you can get a PO Box and pay a bit extra to have everything coming there scanned and emailed to you. Obviously wouldn't work for id cards though.

I actually had a virtual mailbox for a while. I don't currently, in part because I am in housing, in part because I'm chronically short of funds.

But maybe I should get one again at some point. Maybe that would help with some of mail/address issues.

Number two sounds like DNS for physical locations.