I think it’s inevitable that snail mail will practically disappear eventually - and will become a niche thing. It will be a slow decline that will take decades and just fade away slowly. But it won’t completely cease for quite a long time yet.
Consumers who are not tech aware today will miss out if it was to cease and as they also vote they will make sure it won’t happen. However younger people today for the most part have never dealt with postal mail being the norm so they likely won’t use it or miss it as they get older. Of course this also means that the technology to do this in terms of Internet everywhere has to be ubiquitous, and it’s almost there (but not quite).
I’ve often thought that there is an opportunity there for AP to be able to securely print and deliver email to those without technology. Imagine if businesses (or individuals) could email documents instead of posting them, and those documents be delivered electronically to a customer specific email address at your local LPO. A local printing facility could then print and deliver next day (or two). Large amounts of back-end sorting and transport facilties would then no longer be required and it would allow even more businesses and individuals to transition without losing the interoperability that last mile delivery requires.
