I love this ! I admire the way they're inflicting the law of unintended consequences on USPS 😁 If everyone does this, they'll soon realise that all their lightweight freight has evaporated and they are moving more weight for the same number of parcels.

Here in the UK, it's a race to the bottom. Amazon and eBay have educated buyers that delivery is "free". But of course, retailers still have to pay the carriers. So we're driven to go to whatever is cheapest since we have to absorb the postal cost. That means there's not enough cash in the system for the carriers to pay their workers the wages they deserve, and it shows.

Royal Mail used to be good but now they treat us like they are doing us a huge favour taking our money, and it's an incredibly adversarial relationship. Evri (formerly Hermes) have a terrible reputation, but I've been collecting statistics and they are actually marginally better than Royal Mail. Other companies tend to be more courier than post oriented, and are correspondingly more expensive, often for service that's no better.