Comment on Fake stamps circulating in the UK are originating from China, lawmaker says
HeartyBeast@kbin.social 6 months agoThe universal service obligation obliges them to carry stamps. Getting rid of that would require an act of parliament. Good luck getting that through either house
thehatfox@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I would hope that be the case, but I don’t have a lot of faith in it. Royal Mail wants to tear up the USO, because they claim they claim they can only be a viable business without it. The ultimate goal seems to be turning RM into just another commercial parcel courier.
They are being increasingly loud about this, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they eventually bend enough politicians around. The privatised water companies already managed that with the Tories wrapped around their finger.
Ross_audio@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Or they go close to bust and get renationalised.
If Labour are smart about it they’ll keep the USO in place and when it’s shown the business isn’t profitable take the assets back into public hands at a reasonable price.
The key problem with the new stamps is there’s no way for someone to check the validity themselves.
It’s also just a barcode, so a fake stamp that gets used with that barcode first doesn’t get stopped and the legitimate one does.
tal@lemmy.today 6 months ago
I mean, that doesn’t sound that unreasonable to me. Electronic communication has done a lot to displace snail mail, and I have a hard time seeing that changing, there being some new use that produces a lot of demand for sending very thin, flat, flexible things. On the other hand, electronic communication doesn’t much replace packages. If anything, it maybe increases demand for package delivery, due to stuff like online shopping.