Not sure I would agree on that. The post office delivers mail to every house most days. UPS and FedEx only deliver packages that were ordered and not to every household every day. Also, UPS and FedEx can charge much higher prices for packages. The post office gets $0.50/stamp if you use Stamps.com. Yes there is most likely inefficiencies along the way, but if you have to deliver to basically every house every day, don't think UPS or FedEx could do that without hiring many more people and equipment. Then their cost would go up, they would charge more, and no one would use them either. I think the post office is an 'essential business' like health insurance.