...Even before digital technology I was arguing the postal service should be privatized.
This is the quintessential example of how government support of an industry, niche, or market that would not survive the free market can never work.
Technology has moved beyond hand-delivered paper mail, and subsequently its market share has plummeted - to the delight and benefit of consumers. Left as a private entity to answer to the free market, the postal service would not necessarily simply go away. It would make service adjustments, downsize, restructure, innovate, and seek an equilibrium that mirrored the demand in the market for such services.
But instead, the government props up a service in an industry that people want less of, trying to maintain its bloat and create a demand for its services where less and less demand exists.
As someone else here pointed out a few weeks ago regarding government subsidizing of choo-choo trains - they might as well subsidize typewriters, in order to keep the typewriter industry afloat. That's how absurd it is to place decisions about industrial survival into the hands of government.