The New Dealivery.

Ten years ago Ryan Coyne had an epiphany that would create numerous possibilities for American logistics infrastructure: there should be an email address for every physical location in the US, assigned by the USPS, similar to how there is a physical mailing address already assigned to every location in the US.  You could send and receive digital mail, integrate existing USPS e-services and e-government services, and create a securely accessible way for the American people to correspond, with less reliance upon third-party email services that capture your private data as compensation for their 'free' products.

With each passing day, more and more ideas for greater value and justification for this plan grew.  Customer dissatisfaction with the USPS compared to its private-sector counterparts, declining physical mail volume, and demand for greater digital integration of services began to amplify the importance for such a plan to be seriously considered by the powers that be. Thousands of hours of research, interviews, development, data collection, market analysis, and technical expertise have come to define what's possible in the details of The New Dealivery's Full Plan.

"...Not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win..."

The Past, Present, and Future

When we at The New Dealivery were children in the late 1980's and throughout the 1990's, the USPS occupied a special place in our hearts and minds. The mail person was a reliably consistent family friend, visits to the Post Office locations carried monolithic import, stamps were mysteriously valuable pieces of sticky paper (and tales of stamp collections were fascinating), correct postage was a near-science, and seeing the trucks everywhere felt warmly reassuring.  We tried in our minds to fathom how unimaginably difficult setting up the existing postal infrastructure must have been, from Ben Franklin, to The Pony Express, to stage coaches, to the Boston Post Road, and beyond.

Then the world began to change faster and faster.  Email wasted no time.  UPS and FedEx cranked up marketing campaigns with catchy slogans-  The Purple Promise and What Can Brown Do For You became Superbowl commercials.  Physical mail volume declined, leaving the willful monopoly on letter delivery granted by the Postal Act of 1971 less valuable than anyone anticipated less than three decades later.  Businesses still clutch their postage meters tightly, but First Class Mail and Marketing Mail declined by 66 billion pieces since just 2007.  Consumers expect full-featured apps and websites that make no compromises. Then we started businesses and discovered that the USPS wasn't our best bet for a whole lot other than price competition.

The secret is out; non-enterprise email services that claim a free price tag actually profit off of Americans' data collected by those operating the services, sometimes even enabling third-parties to use it against them.  Existing email encryption services are clunky to use.  Email as we know it today is vulnerable in court due to various potential exploits.  Certified Mail is a remarkable service (and a profitable one) but only 7% of those we interviewed know how to use it or know how it works.  

No one that we've interviewed said that visiting any of the more than 31,000 physical Post Office locations is an experience they look forward to.  In fact, the most common feedback we received from patrons about physical visits is that they don't feel like valued customers and that the staff largely seems like they don't want to be there.

This is the tip of the iceberg.  We all know deep down that it could be better, that it could be futuristic, and that it should be, considering that the USPS is the fourth pillar of essential American infrastructure after roads, bridges, and tunnels.

0% Email Market Share

300 billion emails are sent every day. While the USPS internally has one of the largest corporate email systems in the world (3.5 million emails per day - 220K accounts), the USPS is missing out on the massive global revenue opportunity globally that sits in front of them by integrating Federal protections and business advertising platforms into a new United States Email Service.

Financial Obligations

The USPS pays 4 billion dollars in salaries and benefits EVERY MONTH.  They also have guaranteed retirement and health benefits to nearly 500K active career employees, and former career employees. 

​"Federally-mandated retiree and employee benefit programs result in high benefit costs that are growing faster than the rate of inflation." - USPS Report 2020

This accounts for nearly 75% of USPS net losses since 2007.

Revenue Streams

With the decline of First Class Mail and Marketing mail, self-service kiosks (~$300M in 2019), other e-government services (6.6M passport applications, etc.), and more, are simply are not enough to add massive opportunity to the USPS, fast enough to cancel out the effect of benefit costs growing faster than the rate of inflation.

Tech Talent Attraction

When top tech talent is applying to join a career organization, how far down their mental list do you think the USPS is right now?  Is it on the list at all?  Is it a fall-back option?  Turning the USPS into a front-line technology mecca changes that, and changes everything.  Try and tell us that the Federal government wouldn't benefit from having additional brilliant minds internally, and becoming less dependent on relationships with conflict-of-interest tech giants.

Convenience v. Reliability

The USPS digital offering is increasingly robust, but is largely a series of half-measures, and is a knife brought to a gun fight when competing against the private sector.  The USPS has achieved ubiquitous status due to its presence atop delivery infrastructure, its monopoly on letters, and being the place we have to go no matter what for certain services.  Combining that with a true competition mentality has become necessary.

The Environment

Every American household receives an estimated 850 pieces of junk mail per year.  That's a whopping 100 billion pieces of mail, 100 million trees, and a 1 in 3 chance of a piece of mail being junk.  42% of all junk mail goes to a landfill UNOPENED.  In 2019 the USPS traveled 1.34 billion miles to deliver mail to 42,000 ZIP codes, and purchased 579,000 tires to do it.  It's about time to offer the ultimate spam-filtered, reliable alternative for advertising and offers to reach Americans.

The Constitution

Title 39 Section 101(a) of the US Code states that the United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, and created by an Act of Congress.  It'll take another Act of Congress to allow it to move into the future, and it's because of this Constitutional provision that full privatization is not the answer.

Declining Volume

"Total volume of First-Class Mail and Marketing Mail has declined by 34 percent (approximately 66 billion pieces) since 2007 due to the proliferation of electronic bill presentment and payment, social media platforms, and e-mail."

"Since 2007, we have suffered 13 years of consecutive net losses totaling $77.8 billion Our financial challenges reflect the simple dynamic that our largely fixed and mandated costs continue to rise at a faster rate than the revenues we are able to generate in the competitive marketplace" ​- USPS Report 2020

Tech Competition

The technology landscape only continues to broaden, further increasing the burden placed upon the USPS.  In addition to long-time competition from the obvious, such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, and email itself, social media has further complicated forecasting. E-sign services such as DocuSign have decreased dependence on physical signature use, and the household name for purchasing stamps online is not owned by the USPS.  Not a single person surveyed had ever heard of StampsNow, and thought that the USPS owned Stamps.com.

Here's What We Do About It

The US Email Service

Every physical address would get a virtual e-mailbox attached to it.  Apartments and suites too.  When any new address is registered, an e-address or e-dress is automatically created.

123 Main Street, Anytown, VA 20121
IS NOW ALSO
123mainstreet@anytown.va.usps.gov

What Federal Email Gives

Standard email to email, email to physical addresses (send a regular email, have it printed and delivered locally from the far-end post office), Certified Email, guaranteed delivery, and more,   The entire digital system would also be protected by The Fourth Amendment, meaning nobody could snoop on the contents of your email or attachments without a warrant.

Massive Profitability

Global online advertising revenue will approach one trillion dollars by 2025. With strictly filtered digital advertising that prioritizes local & small businesses  tastefully adorning the US Email Service, Americans will be supporting the post office just by checking their email. Businesses will have a reliable new digital way to offer products and services to potential customers, and reduce wasteful paper mailings as they see fit.

Eco-Friendly

If we can somewhat decouple USPS profitability from physical delivery, guarantee job safety to the seven partnered Unions and simultaneously create more jobs while reducing fuel costs and carbon emissions, everybody wins, even the planet. The option to send an email with an uploaded attachment to a physical address, where the digital message is printed, stuffed, and delivered locally from the far-end post office cuts fuel, weight, and logistical load from the letter not having to travel long distances.

Certified Email

A revenue opportunity exists with  Certified Email that will come with a Federally-backed server 'receipt' that proves an email was sent at a certain date and time, credible in a court of law, and with follow up 'receipts' confirming when the message was digitally delivered successfully, and when the email was read, including the IP address of the recipient upon opening. A tiny fee upgrades any email to Certified Email that provides enhanced tracking and server 'receipts' with legal strength.

Massive Profitability​ #2

Americans can choose to pay for an ad-free version of the US Email Service, with only Federal and State advertisements for local services and emergency alerts allowed through. 

Utilizing AI, the strictest spam filtering of all time can be implemented to only allow advertising emails to inboxes, if the advertiser is paying for penetration of the filter.

Protect & Create Jobs

The New Dealivery aims for massive technological and digital upgrades to the USPS with the creation of the USES (US Email Service), which some may see as a threat to the existing physical infrastructure and its employees, but this is absolutely not the case.  By participating in the physical volume decline instead of only falling victim to it from external sources, the additional revenue gains help guarantee benefits to former and existing employees, allow for retraining any that want new roles, and repurposing some existing employees for other physical roles within the new system.

Reliable Convenience

Americans under this plan would have access to a tracking information dashboard for all pieces of regular letter mail they send and all that will be received at their address.  Boom, full transparency.  The #1 complaint received during surveying was that customers feel they have no way to know where something is or what's happening with it unless they pay for additional tracking.  This is a trade off, where the USPS will need to further fortify value of First Class Mail, but with the fact that volume is declining, they're trading for massive utilization upside and the ad revenue that will be generated as an offset.

Blockchain & Cloud

Building the new system on with a public-private cloud infrastructure partnership such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services makes perfect sense.  If it's good enough for the Department of Defense, it's good enough for the USPS. 

It's also a goal to utilize blockchain technology so that a decentralized public ledger with locally stored copies in case of network/power outage affords reduced network load when the mail system data is accessed from rural areas and low-bandwidth areas by USPS and USES employees.  Blockchain tech also opens up new possibilities for voting, the census, and more.

Guaranteed Delivery

Send an email to any other US Email address, choose the option to add Guaranteed Delivery, choose a date by when the recipient MUST have read the email, and if they still haven't opened the email by the night before the deadline you selected, the email and its attachments will be automatically printed, stuffed, and delivered with the next day's physical mail.

Vacation Mode

The ability to toggle 'Vacation Mode' will offer your physical mail to be opened and scanned automatically by machines and presented to you as scanned images. Americans can also easily choose to be registered in a database of 'paperless preferred' so that companies can send scans only without developing their own registration process.  

Future E-Gov Services

The concept of the US Email Service brings protected reliable digital communication with American households and businesses, meaning that the groundwork becomes laid for future applications of e-government services including but not limited to Federal alerts, census collection, local e-voting, direct deposit of stimulus checks, and endless possibilities.

Contact Your Senators

Reach out to your Senators and push for The New Dealivery to be meaningfully studied which can lead to legislative proposals!  Remember, this is a non-controversial topic and any politician from either side of the aisle can get on board with this.

https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm​

It's more than just an idea, it's a comprehensive strategy.

​It's taken 12 years to think this through, talk to experts, and put this together.  Now we're ready to go to Washington.

We've answered thousands of curious, excited, and at times skeptical questions. Please reach out to us by entering your email below if you're interested in receiving a copy of The Full Plan to review it, discuss it, or cover it journalistically.

Call Your Representatives

Ask them to check out the plan and express their support!

Get the Word Out

The more awareness, the better chance of getting this accomplished.  Please share this site and/or our petition in as many places as you can, so we can make history together!

Is any part of you kinda wondering if the post office is still relevant?

48% of the world's mail volume

630,000 employees and 7 unions

$71 billion operating revenue 2019

812,000,000 customer visits 2019

44th

If the USPS were a private sector company, it would rank 44th in the 2019 Fortune 500.

It's The Only Way

For 12 long years many have been trying to convince me to launch The New Dealivery's concept as a private for-profit business. I have never believed it could be done that way, and can only be successful if adopted and deployed by the Federal government and the USPS. There's no other way to ensure 100% penetration to all Americans and make the benefits truly come to life.

Jonas Salk

TND Founder Ryan J. Coyne has been fascinated since childhood about Jonas Salk choosing not to patent the first successful Polio vaccine, and allowing it to be widely dispersed to the American people without worry or care for personal profit. The New Dealivery is his version of that, and an homage to that historic altruism.

We Like Solving Problems

How to forge a path forward into the future for the USPS, and our economy, is a puzzle like any other.  9 years ago I became inspired to bring meaningful and positive change to one of the most prestigious and stories of American institutions.  We'd like to solve the puzzle.

The USPS needs more than an emergency funding package.  Will you help deliver it with us?

In addition to checking out The Full Plan, here are the ways you can help:

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Coming soon

Contact Your Legislators

Did you know there's a site that tells you how to get in touch with the people whose salaries you pay with your tax dollars? Hit the link below and tell them to come check out The New Dealivery.

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