You wonder what a visitor from outer space -- or a visitor from the future -- would make of it . It 's a scene we take for granted -- six days a week , it has been a routine part of life in every city , town and village in the United States . A man or a woman , carrying a satchel , walks from house to house , from apartment building to apartment building . No one has summoned the person with the satchel ; he or she is expected to show up each day without being asked . It 's the postal carrier . And because the presence of the postal carrier has for so long been such a familiar sight , perhaps only that visitor from outer space or from the future would be startled by what he was observing : . The sight of other people also outdoors , all over town , communicating instantly with each other at the touch of a button , smiling and looking down at the little screens in their palms -- grinning at the through-the-air responses they 're receiving from friends , tapping at the screens to reply anew . Words flying from person to person , nonstop , on the go . As , meanwhile , on those same sidewalks , the men and women with the satchels weave their way through the people with the screens , on their appointed rounds to deliver words by hand . The visitor from space , or from a future century , might think this scene -- mailbag luggers walking amid screen tappers -- is like witnessing ox carts amid hovercraft . As might an efficiency expert , or a business consultant . Which summarizes the continuing headache faced by officials in charge of the United States Postal Service . The price of a first-class stamp is going up again in the new year : On January 26 , it will increase by three cents , to 49 cents per letter . Federal regulators last week approved the rise on an allegedly temporary basis -- the higher rate is supposed to last for no more than two years -- but no one really expects it to go back down . The Postal Service reports that it lost $ 5 billion in the last fiscal year -- and this is being presented as good news . The year before , it lost almost $ 16 billion . But there are fewer and fewer envelopes in those satchels , so each stamp will come with a higher price tag ; the billions of dollars the Postal Service is required to pay each year to pre-fund health care for future retirees is a burden heavier than anything that would fit into a mail sack . Yet there are reasons to hope that the Postal Service finds a way to stay around for a very long time . The Postal Service , like UPS , FedEx and other private delivery companies , is a stand-alone business . It is expected to sustain itself ; it does not depend on tax money . But , unlike UPS and FedEx , the Postal Service must go to Congress to get explicit approval for the rates it charges , and for many of the rules under which it operates . This is why it costs the same amount to send a letter across the country as it does to send a letter to the next town . This is why mail service is universal -- why those carriers are required to show up each day at virtually every address in the United States . Forty-nine cents may seem like a lot to mail a first-class letter . But if the Postal Service were to collapse under financial pressures and competition from digital means of communication -- if the Postal Service had to throw in the towel -- do you really think that UPS or FedEx or some other courier service would take your envelope across the country for 49 cents ? Over the Christmas holiday , the failures by UPS and FedEx to get packages to some customers on time were prominent in the news . As efficient as UPS and FedEx usually are , the existence and ubiquity of the Postal Service has a lot to do with what keeps them on their toes . Their business model is : We cost more than the Postal Service , but because of that you can count on us to be reliable and accountable to you . If the Postal Service were to go away -- if that check on the other carriers , that extra impetus for them to excel , were to be removed -- what would the impact be on customers and businesses ? Could or would the other carriers pick up the slack , at a price that did n't dismay people ? One hopeful sign for the Postal Service has come from an unlikely source : Jeff Bezos , the founder of Amazon . Amazon has announced that it will be delivering its packages on Sundays -- and that to deliver those packages it has arranged to use employees of the Postal Service . The Postal Service has said that it is glad to have the business . It without question can use the revenue . Can daily delivery of mail continue forever in a digital world ? It 's difficult to imagine how . In Canada , the postal service has informed citizens that , over the next five years , it will stop all door-to-door delivery of letters and concentrate on delivering packages . Most Canadians are already asked to pick up letters at community mailbox clusters in neighborhoods or apartment buildings ; soon , everyone will . It 's the future . Universal , inexpensive mail delivery in the United States has been one of the miracles of the nation 's long story ; if someone were assigned to build a system like it from scratch today -- carriers reporting to every U.S. address , six days a week , to drop off mail and see if there is any mail to go out , all for pocket change -- that person would have to concede : It ca n't be done . But it was done , and , for now , it 's still here . For those who , in the digital era , casually say that they 'd be just as happy if the Postal Service were to simply disappear : . Be careful what you wish for .
Bob Greene : Delivering letters seems from another time in age of text messages , e-mails . Postal Service needs to raise the cost of a stamp because of declining income . Greene : Yet , what private company would take a letter across country for 49 cents ? Greene : The postal service is not going anywhere.