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Comment by zanny | Hacker News Reader

Is there a legitimate law on the books that Fedex et al cannot legally deliver letters, or is it just that subsidized postage stamps are so cheap no private company can profit off paper mail delivery?

Because letters are paper but so are magazines, newspapers, etc that I know are delivered by non-USPS mail carriers.

It isn't a very persuasive argument to destroy cheap post for the masses to... let investors make money. As it is if usps was incapable of fulfilling its duty private entities could enter the market at way higher prices and if useful would see business.

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Fedex can (and do) deliver letters. They cannot deliver first class mail or use the mailbox, the interior of which is technically property of the US post office.

First class mail is a "monopoly" as someone downthread noted, but not the kind that anyone trying to make a profit would want. The post office cannot set prices on first class mail (that's done by Congress) and needs to deliver mail everywhere at the price Congress has mandated, even when it is done at a loss.

> Is there a legitimate law on the books that Fedex et al cannot legally deliver letters.

I just learned this, but yes, that appears to be the case! The private express statutes[1] appear to do just that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes

The USPS actually has two legally enforced monopolies, as per Title 39 of the US Code. One is over the delivery of anything defined as a “letter,” which is within certain size and weight limits. The second is over the use of your mailbox. That is correct: there are criminal violations if anyone puts anything in your mail box that is not US government approved “mail.”

It doesn’t really seem enforceable though since there is an explicit cutout in that for “urgent” letters. Every letter I send is urgent!

This sounds plausible, but wouldn't work. The USPS has a history of defending its monopoly. Two example:

In 1971 a private corporation, the Independent Postal System of America, offered to deliver Christmas cards for five cents each — three cents less than the U.S.P.S. rate. They were stopped by a court injunction.

In 1966 the CF&I Steel Corporation, frustrated by the quality of postal service between their Denver headquarters and their plant in Pueblo, hired an armored-car service to deliver the mail. After five months of operation the service was halted by the Denver Post Office, and "at the Post Office’s suggestion" CF&I paid two thousand dollars toward back postage..

Someone should tell my Fedex driver, who has started doing everything possible to not deliver packages to my door. For the latest round the package ended up within my mailbox (which I didn't even think to check before calling in a missing package case). I'm pretty sure my mail carrier saw this when they delivered, and I don't think anything came of it.

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