The decision will end 400 years of the company's letter service, and postboxes will disappear from June.
  • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.mlEnglish
    83·
    2 years ago

    Privatization of the postal service in Denmark (and Sweden) was a terrible mistake, and the perpetrators should be held accountable.

  • absquatulate@lemmy.worldEnglish
    65·
    2 years ago

    This is so sad. I thought the whole paper mail infrastructure was essentially eternal due to its importance.

    Letter numbers have fallen since the start of the century from 1.4 billion to 110 million last year.

    110 million is still A LOT of paper letters. Shame the service will be gone.

    PostNord has weathered years of financial struggles and last year was running a deficit.

    Again, I thought this was a national strategic resource, regardless of profit. Over here in europe’s armpit the national post has been running at a loss for nigh on 40 years, and it’s still kept afloat, for better or worse.

    • splinter@lemm.eeEnglish
      391·
      2 years ago

      I agree with what you’re saying and also it feels worth pointing out how pervasive the rhetoric of profitability has become.

      We don’t talk about the military running at a loss, or the department of transport, or any other part of the government. We talk about their cost, because that’s really what it is. Services don’t “lose” money, they cost money.

      • NotSteve_@lemmy.caEnglish
        5·
        2 years ago

        Yeah, every public service now has to turn a profit except for highways and extra lanes

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      2 years ago

      This concept of ‘deficit’ is just a construct for them to make it look like waste … and then kill it.

      Do we run similar profitability metrics for the army? For transportation and infrastructure? For water filtration and waste processing? No.

      Someone decided the mail wasn’t as important as a highway and set about gutting it intentionally.

    • SmoothOperator@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      It’s deemed no longer a national strategic resource since it’s now used so little, and plenty of alternatives exist. That’s why they decided to privatise it, and subsequently close it down when the privatised letter delivery was unable to turn a profit.

    • jimmy90@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      really well put and i like your quotes i mean, essesntially due to its importance , yes i cannot say it better myself

  • BurnoutDV@lemmy.worldEnglish
    172·
    2 years ago

    This is bad for any card secondary market, think magic the gathering or pokemon. Usually you send or receive singles or maybe 5 cards at most as a letter, now this needs to be a package i guess.

    I would also echo the fears of a throughly digitalized society

  • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    2 years ago

    The introduction of a new Postal Act in 2024 opened up the letter market to competition from private firms and mail is no longer exempted from VAT, resulting in higher postage costs.

    “When a letter costs 29 Danish krone (£3.35; $4.20) there will be fewer letters,” PostNord Denmark’s Managing Director, Kim Pedersen, told local media.

    What a mystery as to why nobody is using the letter service.

  • robbinhood@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    2 years ago

    Damn. I know mailing actual letters has been going the way of the dinosaur and this outcome is in some ways predictable, but it’s still a big shift.