For nearly five decades, Reason magazine has advocated the privatization of the U.S. Postal Service. But those calls have become less heated over the years. Why? The Post Office still exists, it’s still awful, and we’re all going to be paying mail carriers’ pensions until the end times. But that awfulness is increasingly irrelevant to daily life, thanks to a glorious cascade of innovative workarounds. FedEx, UPS, email, IM, SMS, Slack—even those old fax machines. Each is a razor blade slashing the Gordian knot of entrenched bureaucracy and byzantine regulation. What’s the lesson here? Don’t argue about the Post Office. Build messaging apps.

This is the only way out of the mess of contemporary politics, writes Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward. Culture and commerce must continue to get bigger and smarter faster than government and politics get bigger and stupider.

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