A lot of the things we do on a daily or weekly basis have ways of doing them that can either be private or communal, some of these which we do not think to consider as having that characteristic.
For example, bathing in the Roman Empire used to be communal, but then Rome fell and citizens in the splinter countries began taking baths privately.
Receiving mail is another example. There are countries which don’t have mailboxes and everyone gets their mail at the post office in the PO boxes. It was the United States which pioneered the idea of the modern mail system, which is why we associate it as a private act.
There are activities as well which don’t have any history as jumping between one or the other that might benefit from it, for example I think towns might benefit if internet was free and freely accessible but only at the local library.
What’s a non-communal aspect of life you think should be communal?
Sorry yes this assumes you live in a place where you can walk to something like a post office or a supermarket. Rural US may not have this but that’s already kind of a problem. You don’t have to go every day though. You can just get a notification when your delivery is actually there. This is already done in some places by companies but in a smaller scale where the available boxes are very limited and only for smaller items. With special cases I meant people who have trouble leaving the house for whatever reason.
Rural Japan here. It would take me more than an hour each way to get to the post office (75-80mins). Ain’t no way when I generally get time-sensitive documents at least a few weeks each year. Also, especially rural but even suburban and urban Japan is generally elderly and has less mobility.
We do have to go to a post box to drop our outgoing mail, though, and I think that’s much easier (that’s a 10-15 minute walk) especially since that’s generally a rarer action.
So why not have an ingoing box next to the outgoing box? My initial comment was for packages but it works for mail too.
Honestly If I could just get the part when they notify me when there’s something to pick up and make junk mail illegal that would be great. As it is I hate checking my mail box every day just to dump literally all of it directly into the trash. I would love to just be notified when there is actually something I need to pay attention to.
Usps has "informed delivery ", where they send you pictures of all of your mail before you get it, so you do know if you are getting something important.
FYI for those reading this, it is just an image of the unopened mail. They don’t open it for you. You see who it’s from and when it is supposed to arrive.