Being at the peon-level in the Postal Service means, as usual, that
this is the first I've heard of a move to introduce "smart stamps"
on a wide level.
(I've seen some of the electronically generated postage from
stamps.com, but they're pretty rare.)
I can testify, though, that personal letter writing is so close to
dead that the body is starting to bloat.
Most of my delivery route is to a senior-community trailer park.
The old folks still do some letter writing. Even so, in a community
of nearly four hundred residences, there's probably not more than a
few dozen personal letters on any given day.
On the remainder of my route, about a hundred sixty single-homes,
in a fairly upscale and much younger demographics neighborhood, the
number of personal letters received in one day can usually be
counted on the fingers of one hand, with leftover digits.
(This is not counting postcards. People still send out postcards
when they're on vacation trips. Usually with the subtext of "I'm in
Hawaii/Paris/wherever, and -you're- not! BWAA-HA-HA-HA!")
Everything else is advertising, bills, business mail, and
magazines.
This is a drastic change from when I first started delivering mail
twenty-five years ago. Then, personal letters were still common,
rather than exceptional. (And there was a lot more satisfaction in
the job.)
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