From the article:
> Danes will still be able to send letters, using the delivery company Dao, which already delivers letters in Denmark but will expand its services from 1 January from about 30m letters in 2025 to 80m next year. But customers will instead have to go to a Dao shop to post their letters – or pay extra to have it collected from home – and pay for postage either online or via an app.
In other words they've just privatised the mail service.
It's been a private company for over a decade and a half. This is pretty common in many European countries. e.g. Germany's postal system is wholly owned by DHL.
More like contracted it out. You might be surprised at the amount of US mail that is delivered by contractors. They've just taken it all the way.
With a monopoly no less.
It's not a monopoly. While FedEx, UPS, DHL, and the likes are not obliged by law to deliver mail, they will certainly do it if the price is good. Even Uber does it.
Lysander Spooner tried offering letter services cheaper than the postal service in the US, and by most measures was better and cheaper at it. As it turns out as soon as you can do it cheaper, they just did what government does and used their monopoly on violence to put him in a tiny cage.
https://www.pennypost.org/pdf/penny-post-archive/PennyPost20...Natural monopolies with no guard rails always end poorly
Are duopolies like iOS & Android much better? I used to trust the mail (in various European countries or the US for example). I don't have a good feeling about either Apple or Google. Especially not as a European, knowing that according to US law I have no rights.
Is letter/parcel delivery a natural monopoly? I think of systems with hard infrastructure that use the public way like roads, rail, and pipes.
I think the question is whether a competitor can become established. Can you run a mail delivery service if you only have local coverage? I don’t know. In the past, maybe you could use the national postal service to fill in the gaps as you scale up a delivery network, but I can’t see the established monopoly giving bulk discounts to a potential competitor. Trucks, vans, sorting facilities and workforces are very expensive to set up, and once they’re set up you can basically optimize them month by month etc. A new competitor has to speculatively spend an awful lot of money before they can deploy anything in any optimal way.
Parcel delivery is clearly not a natural monopoly; there are several carriers, including some that only have a limited footprint. I don't see why you couldn't expand from parcels to letters; although economics would probably be tough.
No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow, Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero.
But: You don't seem to aöbe able to pay the new provider in cash. You need to pay online or using an app. (I have no insights, just from reading TFA.)
> and pay for postage either online or via an app
No cash?