> On a related (and likely just as improbable) note, perhaps cities should start treating delivery as another municipal utility.
Hmm, or maybe national governments should step in and provide this as a subsidized basic service to everyone. It could work for all kinds of post, not just packages. And we could go to great lengths to make it work also across borders! I suggest we call it something like a public postal service.
But here I was thinking about technology and logistics. In-city drone-based delivery promises features that neither public nor private delivery services can... deliver ( :) ). The package stream utility idea promises those same features and more, without the drawbacks of having fleets of lawnmower/brick hybrids zipping around everyone's heads.
Private companies deliver network services "better, faster, and cheaper" by cherry-picking the economically-viable aspects of service, and leaving the noneconomic segments to either the public sector or to be unserved at all.
Universal service --- whether telegraph, rail, telephone, air, postal service, or data networking --- doesn't have that option. It serves both the dense, high-margin zones and the low-density, low-value outlying regions, because it has the interest of the common weal as a whole, not merely profit.
Worse, the private sector then attempts to change legislation and regulation to impose greater burdens on the public-sector services they compete with (as with USPS pension liability funding obligations).
Government-run postal services are tremendously efficient, effective, fast, and reliable ... at least until they became actively sabotaged from within.
Hmm, or maybe national governments should step in and provide this as a subsidized basic service to everyone. It could work for all kinds of post, not just packages. And we could go to great lengths to make it work also across borders! I suggest we call it something like a public postal service.
:-)