They're not artificially hamstrung. USPS makes its money by delivering physical mail. Physical mail has been in decline for 20 years: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/first-class...

Despite the US population practically doubling, the amount of mail sent is back down to ~1976 levels.

This isn't artificial.

They make their money on packages too, and that has been strong, up and to the right for a long time.

The difference in quality of service pre-dejoy and post was pretty clear? And they’ve been break even or profitable pretty much every year.

I’d consider that artificially hamstrung, since it isn’t the market doing that.

Of course. Current organizational failings do cause fallout and long term damage to retention and motivation of key staff, along with reputational issues leading to difficulty getting new qualified staff.

Definitely not unsolvable - pointing out that if you want the USPS to be a happy, well run organization that can take on a massive expansion in scope, it would take awhile and have to fight against the current inertia. It isn’t a slam dunk right now.

Agreed!