I had a realization that the very existence of private domestic shippers in countries indicates a failure of their government to provide universal infrastructure needed by all citizens.

There may be specialized needs like same-day couriers, special handling requirements and other edge cases, but those should be small specialty houses, not international mega-corps.

      • badgermurphy@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        edit-2
        3 days ago

        You don’t have to personally send and receive parcels to depend on that service. If you ever buy goods of any kind, those exchanges depend upon the existence of shipping infrastructure. Everyone but those completely removed from society depends upon it in a very real capacity, just like people without cars still need there to be roads.

      • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        Oh, maybe. But once you have the infra to send a person to every house for mail, the rest isn’t as hard.

          • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            3 days ago

            Mercenary shipping is like mercenary healthcare. Sure we can pretend we don’t need it, or we can avoid it, but it never stops being a cost that eventually comes around to all of us – only with layers of profit added on.