There are dark and uncertain times ahead, regardless of all this, though. The recent USPS budget projection is a rather foreboding one. In spite of recent price increases, the Postal Service is awash in debt, and sees no prospect for profitability in the future. The answer, in a word, is email. The success of the marketing of home computers, added to the universal, inexpensive access to the Internet in North America, both in the USA and Canada, has set the scene for the USPS' worst nightmare.
Email is free.
It is relatively reliable. Very few communications require a hard document, so it is quite suitable for typical communication. And it's fast. Even at its slowest, it beats postal delivery in the majority of cases. I used to marvel at the increase in productive exchange that results from email.