I know the US is a shitshow right now but please im looking for sensible answers.
I have some documents from a bank that need to be mailed. PDF is not an option and no matter how much i push for a secure email option, they still stick with slow turtle mail.
I live outside the US and this slow mail process has been very frustrating. And not just banks, any other business if you request some form of paperwork, their answer => MAIL.
That is very weird consider to mail the document, they need to type out an electronic version then print and mail it. So why waste too many steps?
And i just discovered today theres a thing called mailforwarding service… Aka you buy a US mailbox, letter gets sent to that mailbox then they help to forward those internationally.
In contrast to when I am in China and Singapore, EVERYTHING is digital. It is so much better that the only thing i carry is my phone.
To an extent, institutional inertia. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Adopting new systems brings in a layer of uncertainty, sure maybe there is some upside to the new system, but does it outweigh the risk and cost of overhauling all the dependencies of the old system? Can you be sure that all the relevant stakeholders and partners will be onboard with the new system, or will some reject it and insist on the old system, thus requiring everyone to maintain two standards.
It’s much easier to adopt a new system when the old system is clearly non-functional and untrustworthy, or when there just wasn’t an earlier system that did that function in a given economic environment. The more important the institution, the more issue it causes if it fails, the more this applies.