Paradyme Shift Trickles Down To USPS

This Washington Post article describes how personal and business internet usage is having severe impacts to the status quo operations of the U.S. Postal Service, with one visible result being the removal of the ubiquitous blue mail collection boxes from communities around the country.

The seeds of what we now know as the internet were sown in the mid-'60s to early '70s, and twenty years later became the first commercial online services and products we, the public, could purchase and use. Now, nearly another twenty years have past, and the impacts to traditional services and media are well documented. Music, movies, gaming, newspapers, reservations, banking, retailing, and communications have all been transformed by this paradyme shift. Of course, the post office would feel it, too.

Neither snow nor rain not heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Perhaps not, but maybe the internet will.

Dorothy and Andrew Yankanich moved into their $18,000 brick rambler in Wheaton in 1966 and soon began what would become a daily ritual: Walking across the street to the squat blue mailbox and dropping off bills, birthday cards, letters, catalogue orders and whatever else needed to be sent on its way. For 43 years, in rain and shine, through the raising of seven children, the friendly box they could see through their front window's lace curtains was always there.

Until, one day at lunchtime a week or so ago, it wasn't. Yankanich, 82, watched as postal workers hacked at the rusted bolts and hauled the box away for good.

The full article is here