Then the phone booth. Then the fire alarm pull-station, then the penny.

And now, Denmark has gotten rid of mailboxes.
edition.cnn.com - Denmark postal service letters intl scli

PostNord has been removing the 1,500 mailboxes scattered across Denmark since June. When it sold them off to raise money for charity on December 10, hundreds of thousands of Danes tried to buy one. For each mailbox, they paid either 2,000 ($315) or 1,500 ($236) Danish krone, depending on how worn they were.

Instead of posting letters, Danes will now have to drop them off at kiosks in shops, from where they will be couriered by private company DAO to both domestic and international addresses. PostNord will continue delivering parcels, however, as online shopping remains ever popular.

Denmark is one of the world’s most digital nations; even its public sector utilizes several online portals, minimizing any physical government correspondence and making it much less reliant on postal services than many other countries.

Actually, all of the Nordic countries have become plastic-happy and cash is rarely used. Whether taking a taxi, a bus or buying food or shopping in general, cash is rarely used. I suspect the fixation in the US of using cash has more to do with tax avoidance than anything else. Although, come to think of it, the lack of financial training in school means many Americans are likely to get into trouble if they misused their credit cards.

Jeff