a company would immediately drop service to unprofitable rural communities in favour of the lucrative city-to-city market. And that an already somewhat disenfranchised sector of the US, the rural poor, would just disappear and drop off the end of the world. That's why ending Saturday service prompts endless USPS soul-searching whereas a for-profit company would drop it like it's hot: because it's a service serving up valuable social inclusion.
I consider the postal service and the cell phone industry to be very similar. They both require a high investment and infrastructure and are better served by a few large organizations. I agree with your urban/rural analogy, to a point. Mail service and cell service (in its infancy compared to the USPS) both started out servicing urban customers only. Once that market was saturated they both expanded to the rural community. Most rural residents (me being one) accept this fact. We are the last one’s to get “the latest” and greatest. I just recently (10/2009) got acceptable (not great) high speed internet access. However I was not yelling to the government demanding that “I’m entitled” to high speed internet. The market finally found it profitable to provide the infrastructure needed to get my money. No one else had to subsidize my internet because I made the decision to live in the sticks. I made my own bed and reap the consequences.
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