Of Buggy Whips and Snail Mail

Remember the typewriter? How about the 33-1/3 RPM, or even the 45 RPM record? How about the telephone booth? No? Why? We “outgrew them.” Better products made them obsolete. Children these days don’t even know what they are. Now take a look at the Post Office. Back in the days of the “Pony Express” it was an absolute necessity and everybody was afraid that the telegraph would make it obsolete. It didn’t, because of the high price for telegrams. Telegrams were used mostly only for the most emergency communications which needed instantaneous communication, though some used them for business communications that could not wait for “snail mail.” But now computers on every desk and sometimes in every pocket (the cell phone) have done what the telegraph could not do. The Post Office is going in the same direction as the buggy whip maker did when the automobile came along”. I expect it to be “out of business” in my lifetime, but not without a struggle and a holler. (Just common sense)