Differences and Similarities

There are many obvious differences between email and the postal service. There are simultaneously many attributes that are the same as well. I like to think of email like a post card. Although you may be writing a letter to just one person, as it is passed along, there are many possibilities that it could be read by another person who you didn't intend to read it. Email is not as private as we like to think it is. Actually, almost everything we do on the internet is not as private as we like to think it is. Basic forms and ideas create the similarities between email and the usps. For example:

1. You can write letters to people
2. You need an address
3. You create address books
4. There is junk mail
5. You can throw letters away in the trash
6. You can have many places to send letters to: p.o. box, different email accounts
7. Need an official signifier to actually have your letter reach a destination: stamp, domain for email
8. Metadata
9. Many stops along the way

There are also many differences:

1. One is electronic in full, the other needs some physical form
2. Letters can be fully private and sealed
3. Email can always be updated, letters are sent to a person only at one time
4. Email addresses aren't as permanent as household addresses are
5. You can receive physical items through usps
6. More human contact with usps
7. Don't have to be as accurate with usps as an email address

If you really nit pick and bend the meaning of something with all the differences, you can actually make a connection with them. The similarities and differences is really in the eye of the beholder as to what they see is what.