The post office is there as a

service. It is not there to "make a profit". It should be a government run service. It should not be a private enterprise. 

Like banks post offices are an essential service. Yes it may well be that not as many letters are sent these days. I had a letter yesterday. It told me that the health fund I belong to is "going digital".  I don't like that for a number of reasons, not least because there are still people who do not have access to the internet. Many of them are elderly. Others are too poor or are unable to read. There are security risks. 

Send a letter to someone and unless there is a very deliberate act of opening something not addressed to you then the contents are private. Send an email and a hacker can read it. They can get the most personal and private information about you. It is the way the world now works.

Some years ago now a young man I know was at a Christmas party with his parents. He was talking to someone very senior in a government department charged with security. The very senior man was telling him there was no way the site under discussion could be hacked. The young man told him something like, "If you assure me I will not be prosecuted for doing so then I will show you it can be done." Yes, the challenge was there. It was taken up and the young man, still at school, proved him wrong. He was not prosecuted but he was hauled in to show them what he had done. He now works in that field.  It is a constant battle to keep things secure. We have recently been shown that "human error", a misplaced something, an extra digit or some other small thing can have catastrophic results.

This is why, like it or not, we still need some information to be sent in other ways. 

Add to that too. We need a postal service because we cannot send actual objects over the internet - or not yet. Not everything can go by expensive courier services.  I ordered some "glow in the dark" yarn for someone yesterday. Imagine sending that over the internet. In a secure packet it will not be glowing. It will not cause alarm.

But post offices are closing down in the way banks are closing down. I can still prowl into our local post office. The people behind the counter know me. They have worked there a long time and I have been using it for a long time. Out in the street we can say hello to each other by name. I even get shown pictures of new pups on their  phones. How long will this go on? We lost the banks and they want to take away the ATM. 

"People don't use cash." They do of course but it means shops have to travel a distance to bank it when once an employee could simply walk a few metres into the bank.

These "closures" of essential services are not simply about not running at a loss. They are not simply about breaking even or making a profit. They are about controlling the way we do things and the amount of information being collected about us. For all we might be "embracing new technology" it is coming at a cost. It is coming at the cost of human relationships.

Perhaps I am just too old but there are things about all this I do not like - however damn "convenient" it might be!