We touched a nerve recently with an op-ed in the Washington Post, if the 131 online comments, a letter to the editor, and numerous direct responses are any indication. The piece argued that the U.S. Postal Service needs to change its strategy radically if it is to avoid the fates of other icons such as Kodak and General Motors. Some agreed wholeheartedly. Some called us clueless. While we won’t spend much time defending ourselves, there a few points that we’ll make, given the liberty of these additional column inches.

We understand that the Postal Service suffers from having to pre-fund its retirement health benefit liabilities, while most public- and private-sector operations get to pay as they go. We agree that the retiree health benefit funding requirement is onerous, and that some modification is warranted. We fear, however, that any significant change is fraught with risk because of the Postal Service’s delicate state. Tweaks can quickly swing pension plans from health to long-term insolvency—as too many governmental entities (and their constituencies) have belatedly realized. (We’re writing this from California and Illinois, two states that are chin deep in such problems.) In any case, changing how pensions and retirement health benefits are funded would do nothing to confront the long-term problems at USPS.

There are those who say the projection of a $238 billion deficit through 2020 was manufactured by USPS management. Much of the criticism is leveled at a Boston Consulting Group forecast of mail volume. Many view the BCG forecast as overly pessimistic, constructed to suit USPS management’s desire to create the sense of a burning platform. Our fear, however, is that those forecasts are based on a “business-as-usual” scenario that may be far too optimistic. The biggest issue we have is that the BCG study made the assumption of “no major economic or other disruptions.” We fear, as our op-ed indicated, that there will be a monumental technology disruption.

The BCG forecast of a steep decline in first class mail by 2020 gets a lot of criticism. Our own experience, however, is that many commercial organizations understand the economic advantages of electronic bill presentation and payment and are seriously working through the systemic issues to reap those advantages. Big brokerage firms that get one percent of their customers to switch to electronic communication can have more than $1 million a year drop straight to its bottom line, and the firms are well aware of the possibility. They are also learning how to motivate even recalcitrant customers. We trust, in the long term, that market forces will play out and that the forecasts of precipitous drops in first class mail are not as fanciful as critics contend.

The real problem with the study is one that doesn’t get much attention. It concerns standard mail, or what most of us call junk mail. The BCG study forecasts increases in advertising letters and flyers in 2020. But what if standard mail volumes were to fall as precipitously as first class mail, or faster? Commercial senders of first class mail are limited in how quickly they can go electronic, because of customer expectations. Advertisers, however, have no such inhibitors. If they decide another means of communication is more cost-effective, they can switch in a heartbeat. That could well happen. Imagine an environment where every household member can be targeted with custom advertisements and promotions based upon direct and inferred knowledge of individual preferences, transaction history, immediate interests, long-term objectives, location, social networks, spending ability, etc. And, rather than be printed and collectively delivered five days later to the family mailbox, such messages could be instantly delivered directly to individuals via email, Facebook, Twitter, customer-loyalty accounts, etc. on personal electronic devices. We know which we’d choose, and we believe advertisers will choose the electronic option, too.

The only question is when the switch will occur. We don’t think the shift is imminent. But consider that iPad-like devices will be cheaper than designer sneakers in 2020, and wireless broadband access will be pervasive.

The Postal Service needs to consider the junk mail scenario, because its strategic and operations timeframes are measured in decades. For those who look to age-old trends to argue against radical shifts, consider Kodak and newspapers. Pictures didn’t go away, but Kodak’s lucrative film and chemicals business essentially has. Classified ads haven’t gone away, but they’ve moved online, and newspapers’ revenue from them has dropped 70% over the last decade. Similarly, direct mail advertising won’t go away, but the preferred mode of delivery may dramatically change and leave USPS stranded.