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SAN ANSELMO, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 11: In this photo illustration, U.S. Postal Service (USPS) forever stamps are seen on envelopes on April 11, 2023 in San Anselmo, California. The USPS is raising the price of a first-class stamp from 63 cents to 66 cents, up 32 percent since 2019 when the price of a stamp was 50 cents. The price increase is set to take effect on July 9 pending approval by the postal regulator. (Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Denmark’s postal service has stopped delivering letters after more than 400 years, with its last letter delivered on Dec. 30, 2025. The service saw a 90 percent decrease in letter volume from 2000 to 2024, prompting it to leave the letter delivery business and concentrate on its parcel business, which has been growing due to online shopping.
That trend is being seen stateside as well.
U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail declined from its all-time high of 103.6 billion pieces in 2001 to 44.3 billion pieces in 2024. According to Universal Postal Union, global estimates for letters have been declining sharply, while parcels is steadily growing. This is the same case according to the European Commission’s Glossary of Postal Statistics.
In previous years, there was a high necessity to send bills and legal correspondence via postal mail. However, now most people receive their bills online, and courts offer e-services. Millennials prefer email communication. Gen Z and Gen Alpha grew up on the internet and with electronic screens. The U.S. Postal Service should serve them where they are — online.
As early as 2012, the postal service studied providing a digital identity and protecting user privacy online. The agency already provides authentication services to the Department of State with its passport services. It can require the email ID it issues as a digital identity, authenticated with a code sent to the user’s address.
With a verified identity, we can combat fraud. According to the FBI’s 2024 Internet Crime Report, fraud last year resulted in $16.6 billion in losses, with the average amount of loss at $19,372. That’s a 33 percent increase from 2023.
We can also reduce the risk of ransomware events that affect our critical infrastructure, which the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency considers a serious threat.
But more than that, the postal service needs to make up the funds lost from the lack of letter delivery today. If the agency does not branch out, all jobs its will be at risk. Or it could be privatized, like the UK’s Royal Mail, with significant job cuts. Whatever jobs remain will not be as protected as are current secure and pension-backed U.S. Postal Service jobs.
According to Adobe’s Guide to Email Marketing, email marketing can generate an incredible 3600 percent return on investment; it states the global value of email marketing was $8.3 billion in 2023, and is projected to increase to $18.9 billion by 2028.
By starting an email service, the Postal Service can enter the email marketing business, selling to business customers in local neighborhoods. In order to do so, of course, it must invest in training mail carriers in email and email marketing services.
On the environmental side, the postal service uses a delivery fleet exceeding 200,000 vehicles, producing 1.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent carbon dioxide in 2022. The Postal Service also delivered 7.38 billion pounds of paper in fiscal year 2024, taking into account first-class, marketing mail and periodicals. Those are millions of trees cut down for paper (assuming it is not recycled paper), in addition millions of trees needed to absorb the carbon dioxide Postal Service produces annually.
The central question is whether the Postal Service continues its current trajectory toward insolvency or pursues a modernization alternative. By implementing a digital trust framework — a government-authenticated system for secure communication — the agency can pivot to high-wage, tech-adjacent roles in email services, marketing and parcel delivery to fulfill its constitutional mandate.
By doing so, it would be creating a new revenue stream instead of asking for more tax money. The Danish model is a strategic retreat to a more profitable core — parcels — while maintaining its infrastructure. The Postal Service should continue to deliver parcels to every address, while moving letters to the digital realm.
Praveen Chaparala works at Good Old Ben. He is an alumnus of The University of Texas at Austin and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
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