Danes are sending their final Christmas cards — the last ever to be delivered by the national postal service.
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Danes are sending their final Christmas cards — the last ever to be delivered by the national postal service. From the year-end, PostNord — which traces its history in Denmark back to 1624 — will cease carrying letters and handle only packages. https://www.ft.com/content/fecad9e1-5b32-420c-83ef-1c261241b352?shareType=nongift
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Danes are sending their final Christmas cards — the last ever to be delivered by the national postal service. From the year-end, PostNord — which traces its history in Denmark back to 1624 — will cease carrying letters and handle only packages. https://www.ft.com/content/fecad9e1-5b32-420c-83ef-1c261241b352?shareType=nongift
@w7voa The delivery of letters is taken over by a different company, DAO, who have also been delivering packages for a number of years
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J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
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@w7voa The delivery of letters is taken over by a different company, DAO, who have also been delivering packages for a number of years
@jesper_linnet @w7voa Pretty sure they haven't been doing it since the 1600's - let's not pretend like this isn't an abdication of the duties of a civilized nation, putting yet another crucial societal service on private hands & making it subject to market whims. The fact that Denmark has been eroding the mail system for years to get to this does nothing to make it less of a shitty move.
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@jesper_linnet @w7voa Pretty sure they haven't been doing it since the 1600's - let's not pretend like this isn't an abdication of the duties of a civilized nation, putting yet another crucial societal service on private hands & making it subject to market whims. The fact that Denmark has been eroding the mail system for years to get to this does nothing to make it less of a shitty move.
@jwcph @jesper_linnet @w7voa It’s another one of those “it’s better for the prices and competition if we privatise it” - but actually it has the opposite effect.
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@jwcph @jesper_linnet @w7voa It’s another one of those “it’s better for the prices and competition if we privatise it” - but actually it has the opposite effect.
@Trine_DK @jwcph @jesper_linnet @w7voa Yes. And let us not pretend the population in general is thrilled about it.
Some nuance -
What comes before is Digtal Post. Not email, but a state-run service in which Danish residents receive documents from and write to national and local authorities, stored encrypted, accessed with Danish digital ID MitID (meaning MyID). It is possible to be exempt, but only 4.9% of Danish residents are. By default, nothing goes out on paper.
In 2024, 251,532,193 letters went out through Digital Post. Before, these would have been delivered as physical letters. In other words, 95% of traffic was lost to Danish mail, along with what is sent with a similar system, eBoks, owned by banks and insurance companies. What they would send as physical mail 15 years ago goes through eBoks.
The loss of a mail service is not uncomplicated: A lot of regulation is written with the assumption that there is a functioning pubic mail service, and that will need to be reworked. -
@Trine_DK @jwcph @jesper_linnet @w7voa Yes. And let us not pretend the population in general is thrilled about it.
Some nuance -
What comes before is Digtal Post. Not email, but a state-run service in which Danish residents receive documents from and write to national and local authorities, stored encrypted, accessed with Danish digital ID MitID (meaning MyID). It is possible to be exempt, but only 4.9% of Danish residents are. By default, nothing goes out on paper.
In 2024, 251,532,193 letters went out through Digital Post. Before, these would have been delivered as physical letters. In other words, 95% of traffic was lost to Danish mail, along with what is sent with a similar system, eBoks, owned by banks and insurance companies. What they would send as physical mail 15 years ago goes through eBoks.
The loss of a mail service is not uncomplicated: A lot of regulation is written with the assumption that there is a functioning pubic mail service, and that will need to be reworked.@mjj @Trine_DK @jesper_linnet @w7voa Also, let's not forget that the remaining "too few letters to apparently matter" is stil about 100 million - which is probably a lot of direct mail advertising etc., but it's still 100 million letters.
One of the biggest problems with privatization (after price-gouging) is what constitutes "not worth doing", e.g. public transportation in sparsely populated areas.
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@jwcph @jesper_linnet @w7voa It’s another one of those “it’s better for the prices and competition if we privatise it” - but actually it has the opposite effect.
@Trine_DK @jwcph @jesper_linnet @w7voa to be honest I think that package delivery works better today than at any other point during the time I have been receiving mail (I am 44).
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@Trine_DK @jwcph @jesper_linnet @w7voa to be honest I think that package delivery works better today than at any other point during the time I have been receiving mail (I am 44).
@mshdk @Trine_DK @jesper_linnet @w7voa I don't think there was much to improve; packages always overwhelmingly made it to the recepient in reasonable time & cost.
People have always complained about the post office but I fail to see how having pickup points spread all over hell, with no professional service, is better... dropboxes work well, but that's about it & has nothing to do with privatization.
I'm 56 BTW & have been a professional sender many times, too (webshops etc.).
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@mshdk @Trine_DK @jesper_linnet @w7voa I don't think there was much to improve; packages always overwhelmingly made it to the recepient in reasonable time & cost.
People have always complained about the post office but I fail to see how having pickup points spread all over hell, with no professional service, is better... dropboxes work well, but that's about it & has nothing to do with privatization.
I'm 56 BTW & have been a professional sender many times, too (webshops etc.).
@jwcph @Trine_DK @jesper_linnet @w7voa it was hit and miss if they would try to deliver your package, often they would lie to you and make a fake note about attempting to deliver your packages and then you had to wait until next day where you could go to a post office to pick it up if you were able to in their very short opening hours.
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@jwcph @Trine_DK @jesper_linnet @w7voa it was hit and miss if they would try to deliver your package, often they would lie to you and make a fake note about attempting to deliver your packages and then you had to wait until next day where you could go to a post office to pick it up if you were able to in their very short opening hours.
@mshdk @Trine_DK @jesper_linnet @w7voa That did happen, yes - but that part most certainly did NOT get better!!
Also, you're not exactly comparing with Post Danmark's heyday; the short opening hours & closed down post offices, that was towards the end & part of the new public management project of deliberately hollowing out the service in advance of selling it off to private interests (but then you're also a bit younger than me, maybe you don't remember).
