i remember reading (although i can not find it in the forum) about the price for each country to send mail internationally is somewhat set by the unu (universal postal union). from what i remember, the priced charged is based on the income revenue of that country has to pay the unu to deliver anything. i am sure there is something taking from the price for that postal service too. i am sure someone would know more about this.
you should be lucky not to live in denmark. for sending a letter/postcard outside the country (which includes their outside territories of faroe island and greenland) cost DKK 33 - which arounds off to 4.44 euros (or US$5.25).
For a Norwegian, this topic is just funny. Most of the countries mentioned can send cards anywhere in the world for less than we pay to send nationally…
The Postal Rate increases are all part of Trump appointed Postmaster Dejoy’s new plan. What is worse is that I was just reading in USA Today that mail services are going to slow down as well as they shift to transporting mail on trucks.
And it’s only 0,10 € cheaper within Finland: 1,85 €.
So for example the American domestic postcard prices sound almost like free to me
thinking I could send 5 cards with the same money I can send one here, and USA is so large too, it’s really inexpensive.
After watching this Top Gear Episode where they race a Royal Mail posted letter, I’ve never complained about postal rate hikes. It is a feat.
Sharing from the Singapore perspective. When i first started Postcrossing in 2013, postage for postcards to overseas was 50c. Now it has increased to 70c (which is about 0.44 EUR) which is reasonable. Surface mail remains at 30c. Singpost has been privatised. Perhaps it has something to do with the terminal dues set by the Universal Postal Union? I know my neighbours in Malaysia pay 90sen (0.19 EUR)
eh, what would fix USPS is not private competition (nobody wants to really compete with the mandate for USPS to serve every mailbox even in hard to reach areas - it’s not profitable. I honestly have been waiting for these price increases for a while since its crazy cheap to send snail mail domestically in the US) but being able to innovate and removing the requirement to prefund social security. Some good insight into the hurdles our government is weighing down the post office with can be found here.
Domestic issue with Royal Mail.
I remember reading in my early days of Postcrossing, Royal Mail was fined for raising 2nd class post above the £0.60 (60 Pence) price cap set by the Ofcom(?) or the Consumer Price Index(?) within the UK.
Ofcourse this changes with inflation.
Royal Mail incurred a fine for the price increase of 2nd Class post in 2019 and 2020.
For Australia, the cost to send a postcard or letter to US is AUD3.40 and to Europe is AUD3.50. This is pretty expensive if you are sending 3 or more a week.
This happened to me when I sent some tea and stickers to the US. Where I would have paid $3.40 I had to pay $21 instead. I ended up taking the tea and stickers out just so I could send my mail.