No, because using planes to deliver to regional distribution centers is much more efficient.
> Is FedEx going to send a truck an a four-hour round-trip to deliver a single letter to someone on an indian reservation for 50¢?
The USPS does not deliver mail directly to the majority of reservation residents. Most have to fetch their mail at the closest office, which could be upwards of 1 hr away from them. This is because most reservation residences don't actually have an address (which also prevents them from registering to vote, which is another related issue).
> Is UPS going to charter bush planes to deliver mail to remote outposts in Alaska, Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands?
The USPS doesn't either. The USPS's Alaska Bypass has a minimum order weight of 1000 lbs, it's designed for retailers. The USPS does not serve normal consumers in very rural areas with standard mail features.
How do planes and distribution centers get mail to people at sea for months at a time?
The USPS does not deliver mail directly to the majority of reservation residents
You're not wrong. But there are plenty of people in remote places on the rez who do get mail hours from the nearest trading post. Just because they're not the "majority" of people doesn't mean they don't deserve to be served.
The USPS does not serve normal consumers in very rural areas with standard mail features.
Either you and I define "rural" differently, or you haven't spent as much time in rural places as I have.
It's possible to half agree with those political factions while still wanting to keep government subsidized public mail.
For example, if they want access to consumer mailboxes in an area, they need to cover 100% of the addresses USPS covers without routing packages through USPS. That way, they don't have the ability to surgically cherry-pick the most lucrative aspects and leave USPS with the crappy bits due to its mandates.
Given that USPS and FedEx are roughly $10 for a 3-day letter, I don't know which carriers would even want to deliver paper mail.
That strikes me as unreasonable. We don't impose that kind of a requirement on package delivery on one's porch...why should we impose that requirement on paper mail delivery in one's mailbox? In no communication enterprise do we ever require 100% coverage. Markets finds some equilibrium with global, national, and local players coexisting. The same can be true for state-run enterprises.
And we absolutely do place similar requirements on new entrants in monopoly enterprises. I'm thinking about things like 911 service on cell phones/VOIP phones. Basically, we all need the "new mail" to work pretty much like the old mail it's replacing. It's in nobody's interest for an inferior system to eat all the profit and drive the existing system into collapse.
Is Amazon going to run ships around the Great Lakes to deliver mail to vessels moving between ports?
Is FedEx going to send a truck an a four-hour round-trip to deliver a single letter to someone on an indian reservation for 50¢?
Is UPS going to charter bush planes to deliver mail to remote outposts in Alaska, Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands?
There are post offices so far out in the middle of nowhere that while they have a concrete pad for handicapped parking because it's required by the ADA, no customers ever arrive by car, so there's also hitching posts for people's horses, which is the primary mode of transportation. I don't see Amazon doing that. It'll just say, "Wait 20 years for your mail while we work the bugs out of our super-cool drone delivery service!"