Denmark's postal service to stop delivering letters
Denmark's postal service to stop delivering letters
www.bbc.com
Denmark's postal service to stop delivering letters
50 comments
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Privatization of the postal service in Denmark (and Sweden) was a terrible mistake, and the perpetrators should be held accountable.
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Also Germany
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And the UK, anywhere else?
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US soon
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Yeah, postnord fucking sucks. We could have gotten lucky with something better, but it was pretty clear from the start this wouldn't go well, IMO.
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And Australia
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It's not privatization since the government(s) still owns PostNord, it's called corporatization (Sweden owns 60% and Denmark owns 40%)
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Technically correct, yes. Still has all of the hallmark negative effects of privatization.
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This is so sad. I thought the whole paper mail infrastructure was essentially eternal due to its importance.
Letter numbers have fallen since the start of the century from 1.4 billion to 110 million last year.
110 million is still A LOT of paper letters. Shame the service will be gone.
PostNord has weathered years of financial struggles and last year was running a deficit.
Again, I thought this was a national strategic resource, regardless of profit. Over here in europe's armpit the national post has been running at a loss for nigh on 40 years, and it's still kept afloat, for better or worse.
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I agree with what you’re saying and also it feels worth pointing out how pervasive the rhetoric of profitability has become.
We don’t talk about the military running at a loss, or the department of transport, or any other part of the government. We talk about their cost, because that’s really what it is. Services don’t “lose” money, they cost money.
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Yeah, every public service now has to turn a profit except for highways and extra lanes
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I wrote it already when the article popped up in !europe!europe@feddit.org
I think it is a strategically bad idea to remove the infrastructure for physical mail, while Russia is waging Hybrid warfare, which also targets electronic communication.
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This concept of 'deficit' is just a construct for them to make it look like waste ... and then kill it.
Do we run similar profitability metrics for the army? For transportation and infrastructure? For water filtration and waste processing? No.
Someone decided the mail wasn't as important as a highway and set about gutting it intentionally.
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It's deemed no longer a national strategic resource since it's now used so little, and plenty of alternatives exist. That's why they decided to privatise it, and subsequently close it down when the privatised letter delivery was unable to turn a profit.
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Yeah but now much of the 110 million is just spam, scams and advertisements?
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really well put and i like your quotes i mean, essesntially due to its importance , yes i cannot say it better myself
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This is bad for any card secondary market, think magic the gathering or pokemon. Usually you send or receive singles or maybe 5 cards at most as a letter, now this needs to be a package i guess.
I would also echo the fears of a throughly digitalized society
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Letters can be send as packages instead. They already are, because the letters are more expensive. This is the main reason for why the postal service is no longer financially viable. It was privatized and outcompeted.
I believe the price for shipments is artificially low. It's not reasonable that I can order boxes from China cheaper and faster than delivering a letter across town.
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The postal service is a SERVICE the goal was never profit.
Besides, it was profitable until Bush made utterly absurd changes to their pension fund.
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When I lived in Korea, it was cheaper for me to ship something in from the US than it was to ship something from the US to just across the border in Canada.
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Are there any danes here, that could chime in? The idea of having an almost entirely digitized society feels so scary to me. Everything having mobile apps, no cash? Feels like a horror story given the implications on privacy. I couldn't even run most of the the so called secure apps on my lineageOS. My bank knowing exactly when I payed how much money for what would be so dystopian to me. Are there other methods available to protect your privacy in Denmark? Or does there truly not anyone give a shit about their digital footprint?
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There is still cash, as well as a national credit card provider.
Digital footprint is not something many people are concerned about. Possibly this has something to do with the strict protections offered by GDPR. Digital processes have also been normalised after all interactions with the state became digital. Trust in the state is high.
Not saying people shouldn't be concerned, they just don't seem to be.
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Dane here.
Indeed it’s essentially impossible to minimise your digital footprint because there is no cash.
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there is no cash
This is false. Cash still exists and can be used in a wide range of businesses. It may not be the norm, but it definitely still exists.
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And, what if the US block MasterCard and visa in Europe?
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This is so blatantly false, IDK how any Dane could believe this???
We do absolutely have cash, and it's legal tender, which means cash can't be refused as payment.
Except we also have an anti corruption law, which states we can't make cash payments above $3000.
So that's kind of weird?
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You can use cash for everything below $3000, this limit is to prevent things corruption and whitewashing.
Cash is legal tender, and can't be refused as payment.
It's true we are very digitized in everything like communications with public systems like Tax etc. and also businesses like banks.
Almost everything is done digitally. An we have a secure system for electronic mail, which is also used for signing papers.It is a requirement to have these systems, But there are exceptions, if you for some reason can't use the digital services, you can be exempted.
PS: It will still be possible to send letters after "Post Nord" stops the service. There are other companies that still have this service.
But Post Nord is the old Monopoly company that was traditionally used for it exclusively.PPS: Personally I'd really like to get rid of the physical mailbox, I very rarely check it for mail, because in the 6 years we've been living here, I think We've gotten about 5 letters, 2 of which were for the previous owner!!
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Same here. My country is a lot more analog, so everything from bills to ads still gets delivered via mail regularly. But I would love to have a digital infrastructure for mail delivery. However the costs to make it secure and private seem too high, every attempt by the state to make progress on that gets shut down due to concerns and therefore lack of adoption. Additionally, with the rise of the right and looming threats to your privacy, like chat control, a lot of people have no trust whatsoever in the government
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The introduction of a new Postal Act in 2024 opened up the letter market to competition from private firms and mail is no longer exempted from VAT, resulting in higher postage costs.
"When a letter costs 29 Danish krone (£3.35; $4.20) there will be fewer letters," PostNord Denmark's Managing Director, Kim Pedersen, told local media.
What a mystery as to why nobody is using the letter service.
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Damn. I know mailing actual letters has been going the way of the dinosaur and this outcome is in some ways predictable, but it's still a big shift.
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But... writing things down is the only reliable way to communicate in Denmark.
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