How The US Postal Service Almost Owned Email

from the going-postal dept

MIT Tech Review has an interesting short history of the US Postal Service and email. Despite random looks at taking over telegraph or other non-hardcopy mailing systems in centuries and decades past, it seems that the USPS took a hard look at email in the late 70s and early 80s. The article is written by the guy who suggested they stay away. The post office was considering offering post office computer terminals that people could use to access and send mail. Eventually "big mail" decided that they would focus on what they were set up to do: deliver the snail mail. Of course, the article doesn't say anything of the last decade or so when the USPS has continued to look at various suggestions to become more involved with email - each of which have been fairly laughable.

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