end of public mail delivery

[nicolas de La Casinière]

Alert! For the first time, since January 1, 2026, a country's public service, PostNord in Denmark, is discontinuing mail delivery. If other nations follow suit, it will spell the end of mail art sent through the public system.

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

There has been a huge decrease in mail delivery here in Greece, and some 40 post offices have closed in November, so soon we shall have no postal services, I imagine. I am upset and yet I ponder:

With all our bills for utilities and bank statements arriving electronically online, and we send payments online, our holiday and birthday greetings online, and many online "email art" places, too...why have pen, paper, envelopes, postage stamps and a land postal system?

Why keep a horse and buggy when you have an automobile? 'Just pondering the situation...

Here is an "ancient Greek yellow graffiti-ed postal box" next to a ancient Greek marble road marker stele:

[Oberdada Jr.]

Indeed, why keep up postal services when electronic communication is faster, cheaper, arguably more environmentally friendly, and easier to surveil? 

Here in Norway there are very few real post offices any more, they have merged with food shops. Parcel delivery is always confusing, you never guess where they will end up. Trying to contact customer support at the Post is well neigh impossible, you get to chat with an inane AI which only creates frustration without solving any problems. At least we still have those red post boxes scattered around in the streets. But it wouldn't surprise me if more countries decide to follow Denmarks example.

[John Gayer]

As a relocated Canadian, I have noticed (not a difficult feat) that the postal system in Canada has been in crisis for some time. How much is the result of digital communication, mismanagement and/or other reasons, I don't know. In Finland, the postal system has also been struggling. In Helsinki, mail is only delivered every 2nd weekday on a rotating schedule: Mon, Wed, Fri one week and Tues, Thurs during the next one. Throw national holidays into the mix and it's easy to get confused. The number of post offices have been trimmed. That process will likely continue. The halls and empty retail spaces in shopping centres, though, are becoming more uninviting, since they seem to filling up with more and more banks of lockers where packages may be picked up. A sure sign that the Finnish postal service was struggling hit me a few years ago. This was when I learned they were offering a lawn cutting service. 

[nicolas de La Casinière]

The fact that mail arrives more slowly is not, in itself, a real big handicap for us, fans of slow mail motion, but it is one of the warning signs of a gradual abandonment paving the way for the definitive closure of a public service for delivering letters and postcards. An effect of the logic of profit.