As we take strides into the new millennium, we find ourselves able to communicate with anyone anywhere in the world at the touch of a button.  Telephones, fax machines, and the Internet have replaced the ancient networks of message couriers and foot-mail deliverers.  To many people, the postal service's future is seen heading in the same direction as those long forgotten runners.

However, the postal service is unlikely to disappear without a fight.  It has been proven through history that the postal service can evolve amidst changing technology.  The telegraph and the telephone were both expected to spell the end of the post, yet it persevered.  Although e-mail may have a seemingly endless number of advantages over snail mail, the postal service has an extremely strong foothold in our communications.  Nearly everyone in the world is capable of sending and receiving snail mail.  This is an area in which the Internet has a lot of catching up to do.

In addition, first-class mail is still the most common method for conveying bills and important documents.  The Internet provides many options for paying bills instantaneously, yet few offer the same sense of security as first-class mail.

In reality, humankind's reasons for needing to communicate over long distances have not changed significantly since the first postal services were established hundreds of years ago.  People write letters to keep in touch with family and friends and to manage businesses, in much the same way that the Pharaohs and Caesars managed their immense empires with messenger services.  What has changed is the distance and speed at which we are capable of communicating.  As the world's population has expanded, so has the postal service.  The postal service is like a shirt that will fit you perfectly as a child, and expand to fit you perfectly as an adult too.  Unlike the human body, however, the world population is unlikely to ever stop growing.  Unless the postal service can constantly adapt new technology to help it expand and fit the size of the population, it will tear, and cease to grow.

So what kind of amazing technology might the postal service use in the future to adapt to the population?  Could we see mail traveling from continent to continent via sub-oceanic networks of air-pressurized pipelines?  Perhaps the mail could be delivered to and from Mars on anti-matter powered rockets?  There is even the possibility of teleporting packages!

Those ideas are only fantastic speculation, but the postal service will need to adopt new and innovative technology in order to survive.  Humankind won't stop evolving to wait for the postal system to catch up.