Yes, it also had a mandate to deliver mail. So people living in the middle of nowhere New Mexico can do something like run a small business through delivery (this was on the radio the last time this nonsense was floated). It's actually kind of beautiful, something that I can't imagine would work with a privately owned system.

The beautiful thing is a society deeming universal (gasp!) access to mail to be important.

The ugly part is profit driven mindset, and a “you live in an unprofitable area to mail to, sorry” obvious outcome

They'd end up charging you the amount of money you'd make sending the package, that's how all these forms of rentierism work: Uber, Amazon, Apple, Shopify, etc. Private taxes they want to force onto people.

Must fight it at any opportunity. I can't imagine the economic value something like USPS brings to the country, likely trillions of trillions over it's lifespan. Something the corpos would never admit.