As somebody that moved from Europe to the USA, I can attest that the USPS is the best postal system I have ever encountered. The service level is far above anything I saw in Scandinavia by a long shot. In Iceland the Postal Service is declining really rapidly, so much so that there isn’t even a post office any more down town in the countries biggest city. Yet in the USA you can get a package delivered to your door in rural Washington, all while sending a mail costs a fraction of what it costs in Scandinavia.
In Denmark I receive a letter roughly every 2 months.
It's not surprising that as volume has collapsed, prices have increased. However, I don't have any problem with the service, or with going to a kiosk or other shop to collect a parcel.
Partially. The German state owns 20% and is the largest shareholder. However those shares are not managed by government directly (as with Deutsche Bahn, the railway, where the traffic ministry has direct hold) but is held by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, which is tasked with handling it economical, not political.
Of course that separation isn't complete and strict and there is political influence from that level and they have influence via specific post laws especially on the letter side (government has oversight on tarifs and requires deliver to everywhere in Germany etc. via monopoly laws)
