Rural Post Offices

Not really relevant to the world of stibasa, but talk of the effects of closure of rural post offices provokes thoughts about the role of physical outlets for goods and services.

As readers will gather, I do as much as possible on line, but I do have some sympathy for those who can't or don't want to do this.

I'm also strongly in favour of basic bank accounts - with no overdraft facility (if the customer doesn't want it) and strong capabilities for checking the account balance.

One use of POs is for paying utility bills. Well I'm sorry, but what's wrong with writing a cheque, or filling in a form with card details and posting it back? If necessary, a freepost envelope can be provided by the utility company.

The same applies to TV licences and "car tax". Moreover, these are only renewed once a year and the former is free to over 75s so no money need change hands.

Another use cited is getting cash, but where is this cash to be spent? In the PO where it was just got?

One website I read had a contribution form someone who was concerned about not being able to send parcels. S/he didn't say how many parcels s/he sent, nor how often, nor where s/he bought the things that were in the parcels.

Some people are at least bold enough to say that the PO provides an informal social network. At least this has some merit a village with no public building whatsoever would be a grim dormitory.

What we seem to be getting at is that people want interactions face to face with other people, but they want a pretext for doing it: They don't want to interact with other people for its own sake. Once we decide that we must have places for communities to interact face to face, we start to build the argument the other way round. If people are going to this place, they may as well do practical things while they're there. And the range of goods and services needs to be maximised to make the place a going concern.