the grass is always greener
*looks down at sand*
this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2026
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So, memery aside, do y'all have your official digital postbox/email, a personal email, a work email, etc. or do you just use the one?
In Denmark, as a citizen, you get an official secure email sort of thing attached to you NemID, called "eboks".
NemID is a central account in the Danish registry that holds all your personal information, such as medical conditions, home address, bank accounts...
You are required to have an app on your smartphone called "MitID" which you use for logging into services related to your NemID.
Your NemID is being secured by a security company the Danish government hired called Nets. Security and encryption is handled by them, and the government and related elements will only send mail to your eboks, which requires you to log in with MitID.
They're trying to implement something like this in the UK but they haven't been able to explain how they plan to accommodate people that don't have smartphones. Because they exist and need to be accommodated for.
Well, here in Denmark you can get a NemKey device. But that's only given to old people in care homes.
The other method would be doing everything by in-person appointments, which need to be booked weeks in advance and usually requires you to answer a list of security questions each time.
Essentially very annoying to do if you don't have a smartphone, especially if you want to do something simple and quick. Like transferring money from your bank (logging into your bank account requires NemID), buying something online (verification done through NemID), transferring medical documents to a new doctor and/or changing home address (NemID log-in at the civil registry).
These are all things that can be done within seconds or minutes with your smartphone, but will take weeks (counting the time you have to wait for an appointment) if you want to do it "the old fashion way".
In other words, here in Denmark the expectation is that you have a smartphone. Loads of services are now smartphone dependent, like taking public transport (tickets and check-in cards are slowly being phased out).
Letter deliveries continue as always, it's just another company delivering the service.
The company taking over is already in the parcel and morning paper delivery service, and letters today are so few in Denmark, that they can probably take that up pretty easily.
Letters are so rare here that last year our household only received 3 letters, and 2 of them were small medical test kits, that would probably have been cheaper to send as parcels. So in reality I count it as only 1 letter, and the previous year I don't recall receiving a single letter!
We have a digital service which provides all official letters and also has the ability to return them as legally signed.
Crazy to be hear letters are rare in Denmark, I'm drowning in letters in Germany! If you apply for an official online service, they send you a letter with the pin code. Letters are kinda used as notifications here too.
The level of digitisation in Denmark is very high compared to basically any other country in the world. That is what most people commenting in this thread seems very unaware about.
To me it sounds weird to "apply for an official online service". We have access to all public online services through the same login we use for banks and the official public digital mail service.
No matter if it's tax, health, prescription renewal, the bank or whatever, we login through the same login service, and every danish citizen automatically has access to all public services without applying and without delay.
Even people who are not citizens, like for instance exchange students are issued access to this system.
«By law, Danes must always be able to send a letter. If a private company stops delivering them, the government must step in with a new provider.»
So it’s not ending the letter service really
Nationalization of public services, I guess it’s good
No clue why you're being downvoted, privatisation of public services is one of the earliest forms of enshittification
I agree.
Fortunately I don’t care about farming karma on social networks.
Downvote probably because people realize that going back to public service also means now that private owners are done milking that to the bones, it is tax payer money that get to rescue the whole thing.
By the way if I understand it right it seems some other private entity will be looking after courrier.
I know Dao have stepped in to take over letter delivery.
Super misleading title?
Outright wrong in fact.
Friendly reminder that Denmark is about 44 km^2. For context, the UK is 244 km^2
Which matters a lot. Because the various postal services around the globe? Letters are petty much a side benefit. What they are really for is delivery of important packages (e.g. medicine). Particularly to rural underserviced areas. And when you have routes that head out to the boonies 3-7 times a week, carrying a sack of letters is "free"
This? I don't know all the details and don't have enough of a basis to gather them from a short article. But this definitely feels like it is going to be depending on third parties for package delivery and so forth... which is what certain, really fucking stupid, countries are trying to do by privatizing/defunding their postal service.
Like I said, Denmark is tiny. They will probably be fine. But this... feels like the kind of thing that will bite people in the butt a decade or so down the line.
Your numbers are off by a factor of 1000. According to Wikipedia Denmark is 43 094 km² and UK 244 376 km² 🌸
I love living in 44 square kms with all the other Danes. We're a tight knit people, except Troels.
With fewer letters being sent, postage stamp costs have soared. Sending a standard letter in Denmark now costs 29.11 krone ($6.84)
gonna make rich people start sending letters to Denmark as a flex
I was just today writing about the importance of sending physical mail as a form of non-violent action compared to sending email. Paper mail implies that the sender cares more about the issue in question and also ensures a more personal touch with a greater literal presence if enough physical letters can be mailed. Ofcourse there is a trade off with it being less easy and requiring postage, it depends on the context. I guess it's just no longer an option for people in Denmark.
https://commonslibrary.org/198-nonviolent-methods-upgraded/#Access_Spreadsheet
You can still send physical mail. The service is being taken over by a different company.
Oh ok, hmm I guess one could self deliver too.
Our physical mail has been degraded a lot.
It used to be day to day delivery and cheap. But now, just before the closing, it would have cost me 4 euros to send a postcard to my neighbor, and she wouldn't receive it until next week, maybe longer, maybe not at all. And then as the sender, you should also consider the additional weeks that people might take between checking their mailbox.
No wonder people don't use it. It's straight up unprofessional to communicate by letters here.
I did receive a letter last year, but I actually thought it was weird of them to use physical mail - as if they didn't want me to have the information. If was important, they certainly shouldn't do it like that.