USPS is increasing the price of mail for the USA this time the price will jump twice the amount that it increased last time. Link to article witch I found this No postage increase in January, but two are on deck each year beginning January 2023 | The Inquisitor
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grumbles
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Time to dust off my carrier pigeons.
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We need to convert our mailboxes into tiny teleportation devices. Maybe we need to get more physicists into Postcrossing…
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Oh… So they’re going to start following inflation for mail, but not other things? 
Edited to add: Not that I want other prices going up (ie. groceries, gas) , I just find it frustrating!
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There is also some information in this article from Linn’s Stamp News (Sept. 16, 2021):
“USPS plans price hikes two times a year starting in 2023”
some select quotes:
The affected market dominant products include first-class mail, marketing (advertising) mail, periodicals, package services and special services. These are services in which the USPS holds a monopoly.
The twice-per-year rate hike decision was revealed a day after a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington, D.C., sharply questioned a protest by mailing groups over the Aug. 29 stamp price increase that was above the rate of inflation.
The judges seemed to endorse the way the Postal Regulatory Commission had revised its procedures to allow higher stamp prices.
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Fire. DeJoy. Now.
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I know Americans seemingly have a tradition of complaining about the price of first class postage, but the U.S. Postal Service’s prices are probably pretty close to still being the cheapest of all industrialized nations. Part of the problem is that the postal service depends on the mailing of first class letters for the majority of its revenue, but that’s precisely the type of mail that has been in steep decline, due at least partly to the fact that people used to use first class mail to pay their bills; now, it seems, the majority use electronic bill payment, instead. (Which, actually, is part of the irony of it all; with the exception, possibly, of Postcrossers, the average American probably doesn’t mail letters more than, maybe, twenty times a year, (I’ve heard stories about how people in high school don’t even know the established way of sending a letter) so even if stamps go up another ten cents, they’re paying only an additional two dollars per year. Not a lot to complain about, as far as I’m concerned).
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I can confirm that all through high school I had no idea about how one would really send a letter and no idea how to address an envelope. And I got out of there about 10 years ago. Most of my friends still have no idea how and typically ask me (one of them even works for USPS). We did kinda learn in 3rd grade but I was out sick that day so I didn’t really grasp it until I got a job where I was in charge of shipping things.
And prior to this September, I could count on one hand how many things I sent in the mail in my life.
As for price increases… entering stock up mode on forevers.
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I think if you grew up primarily communicating electronically, you’re not going to be very familiar with snail mail. I had email when I was in high school, but this was the early days. I still had to write physical letters to various institutions to get college application materials. I had also tried my hand at submitting short stories to various places which also involved learning to write cover letters. And, of course, sending cards to relatives.
I also have a parent who is a stamp collector so not learning how to write letters or address envelopes was kind of not an option.
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Off-topic, but I can’t help myself: my best friend and I, as children, dreamed of raising our own respective teams of carrier pigeons so that we could exchange secret messages with each other, old-school style. We had coop plans and breeder information ready to go.
We lived five minutes away from each other–on foot. 
(Don’t get me wrong–I would absolutely still do this today.)
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I hate to be pedantic, but carrier pigeons are trained to fly home from wherever they are being held. So in order to use them for Postcrossing, you would have to travel to the address of the recipient, pick up their pigeon, travel home, attach the postcard and release the pigeon.
But dust them off anyway, it’s good for their feathers.
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It’ was actually a joke and not to be taken literally. I’m well aware of how carrier pigeons operate, I guess I’m just not all that well aware of how people can sometimes be, well, a bit too pedantic.
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P.S. And I’m curious: Not to be too pedantic, or anything, but exactly where in my original statement did I say that I was going to use my carrier pigeons for Postcrossing, a purpose for which, as you have already pointed out, they would not be suited?
Oh Jeff, you should know by now not to take anything I say too seriously. It’s half the fun of this forum! As for why I assumed you meant to use postage birds to post postcards for Postcrossing…gosh, I really can’t say.
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Carrier pigeons are now called “postage” birds? Who would’ve thought! And really, I don’t know why you assumed I’d use “postage birds to post postcards for Postcrossing,” in the same way I wouldn’t know why you would assume I’d go to a drugstore only to buy drugs. After all, you can use a drugstore, these days, for more than just buying drugs, in the same way that carrier pigeons were, and perhaps still are, used to send messages, not postcards.
So what are you planning on using them for? Not espionage, I hope. And how did they get so dusty in the first place?
Why did you then write “time to dust off my carrier pigeons”?
It’s implied in the message under this topic, (if prices go up and you talk about mail pigeons, it’s normal to think you joke about taking them into use), but I didn’t take it seriously.
But, what I wanted write more:
this shows our postal rate wrong, I think.
To me it looks like Finland would be 3,5 American Dollars (interesting observation: I don’t have a dollar icon in my laptop 
), but it’s 1,95 € ( 2, 27 in American Dollars).
(Edit. I can’t read the whole thing behind the link, because it says unsafe, so, is this calculated somehow taken into account median salaries in given countries etc.?)
No, not espionage, they don’t really wear disguises all that well. Even in dark sunglasses, they still look like pigeons.
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Why" Because it was a joke, that’s why.
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