USPS had the incredible foresight to respond early to the invention of email. In 1982, you could send an email to a post office, and then it would be printed and hand-delivered to the recipient. The service charged 26 cents a letter and lost $5.25 a letter. They sent over 40 million of these around the nation, resulting in an inflation-adjusted loss of over $500M over 3 years.But email didn't really begin to eat USPS' lunch until the last decade or so...First-class mail is USPS' most profitable revenue stream. Volume peaked in 2023 and has declined every year since. Over the last 5 years, first-class mail volume declined an average of 5.9% year-over-year, resulting in a revenue decline of 1.6B per year.The Last Dinosaur: The U.S. Postal Service (CATO 1985)USPS Financial Statements