Sowell uses the Kodak bankruptcy as a platform to decry the uselessness of the USPS. Read the column, it's good. The rest of this is just me rambling about crap.
LINKPost offices were once even more important than Eastman Kodak, and for a longer time, as the mail provided vital communications linking people and organizations across thousands of miles. But, today, technology has moved even further beyond the post office than it has beyond Eastman Kodak.
In 2011, the only grocery store in my town (yeah, there's only one) shut down their photo processing equipment at the customer service counter. Which was kind of strange because they were all set up to process prints from the digital camera data cards in addition to the traditional film processing. The end of an era.
Another obsolete item is the phonograph record. For a while recently they were still sort of useful because those goofy hip hop people were making weird sounds with them but now they have electronic versions of the record players that do the same thing. I still have a record player, of course, because I have several hundred classic rock phonographs...all preserved in individual vinyl slip cases. It's an absolute pain in the rear trying to find a replacement needle (or cartridge, as we used to say).
I have to admit that I prefer the convenience of my iPhone for music. Audiophiles say that mp3 music is vastly inferior to CDs but since my hearing was downgraded by an infection several years ago I can't tell the difference.
Also obsolete are the megawatt stereo receivers of my youth. It's funny. I was recently able to acquire a 150 watt per channel Marantz receiver on eBay for about $50 ($30 plus $20 shipping)...that thing would have cost close to a grand when it was new. I combined it with a pair of Pioneer CS-99A speakers (15" woofers and I already owned those) and they will make your ears bleed when turned up all the way. I use the stuff in my workshop where I can be as loud and as obnoxious as I want without it bothering anyone else. Can't do that with records because the vibration from the mega speakers feeds back into the record needle and the distortion is intolerable.
I find myself with a lot of obsolete stuff these days. I have a big bag of SLR photography equipment that I will probably never use again. I guess I can put it in a display case or something as a conversation piece.
But at least my out of date, useless stuff isn't costing the taxpayers an arm and a leg to support the way the post office does. I have thought about the trouble that I would have to go through if the PO went tits up. I think it would be a pain in the ass for maybe two or three weeks and then after that I would be wondering why I hadn't switched over earlier.
I wonder how much longer we will be using paper currency and metal coins given the widespread use of debit cards?
