After struggling for years, the United States Postal Service declares bankruptcy. Despite both increasing and decreasing the prices of stamps, USPS wasn't able to recover from the loss caused by the increase in electronic mail.
The USPS has speculated for years that this may happen. They tried desperately to prevent it by increasing stamp prices drastically. For example, in 2018, the price for a normal postage stamp was $0.99. This is three times the price of a postage stamp from 2000. From 2018 to 2021, they actually decreased the price to try to encourage more people to use the mail. But more people seemed to find the nickname "snail mail" more true over the years. People wanted to receive their mail instantly. The day it took to send it through USPS took too long.
Thie shift to electronic mail really had an impact on USPS. More and more businesses were relying on computers to send bills, receive payments, and more. Even Hallmark and other card companies were selling their cards over the internet, therefore some of the personal mail also decreased. Packages became the sole provider of income to USPS, but it wasn't enough to support the government owned company.
There are many reasons that businesses shifted to electronic mail and computers to accomplish the job that USPS did for them. First, computers were becoming more reliable. Second, computers became more widespread due to a decrease in cost. This meant that almost every citizen was able to afford a computer.