The Mail

Motherboard just announced a weekly newsletter about the United States Postal Service called The Mail, written by senior staff writer Aaron Gordon. You can subscribe to the email version for free, or pay $30 to receive a monthly zine, rather appropriately, in the mail.

The USPS is often confused as a private business that the government operates publicly—which is often the basis for debating its privatization—but it’s actually much, much more complicated than that. The post office should be thought of more as a public utility that manages the delivery of information and, increasingly, commerce. And it’s enshrined in law that it has to do so affordably and equitably to every citizen and resident of the United States.

I have a longer piece in me about this at some point, but, for now, if you’re interested in learning more about the history of the postal service in the U.S., I would very much recommend Winifred Gallagher’s How The Post Office Created America.