Email vs. Snail Mail

Email and traditional mail have many similarities. Both are used to transfer information from one location to another, both utilize central routing stations: mail servers & post offices, and both need a recipeint identified by a unique address. Even with similar core components, there is one huge thing email will never be able to do that traditional mail can do, and that is the transfer of physical matter......mass.....built from atoms.....

Ahhh.....but is email able to do so? Obviously, at this time my mom can't send me her homemade cookies to Blacknwild83@yahoo.com....... but the transfer of a physical object can in fact happen utilizing e-mail/internet. In the same fashion anything else is sent rather it be via snail mail or email, a third party..... a router or a hub of sorts would be needed. Amazon.com or any other online retailer for that matter uses this concept. You place your order online and it is recieved by a central wharehouse where it then distributes goods to waiting consumers.....So in a sense physical objects can in fact be sent via email.

I think a more relevant thought should be more so along the lines of how these two forms of mail are merging, rather than the focus be upon differences and similarities. Traditional mail services, USPS, UPS, FedEx have all already adapted; shifting thier enterprise towards online dependence. If you send a package, you are able to track it's progress in real time until it arrives at it's destination. You can change where physical mail is sent to you online. Neither industry will ever outcompete each other, nor will they completly merge and become as one. Each is dependent upon each other at this point. Online retailers could not be in existence if there were not a way to physically get goods out to the consumer. Now that postal mail is nearly 100% automated in every aspect with the exception of physical delivery, a company could not afford to continue operations without online customer self service such as tracking, postage purchase and address changes.