It’s about as gratifying as trying to explain algebra to a panda.

And yet at a time when technology is becoming the new religion, there’s something strangely comforting about a real Christmas card arriving in a real mailbox.

Perhaps, in the push button age, it’s the simple fact someone cares about you enough to make time to post a card.

But while our ability to communicate has never been easier – or faster – the speed of postal delivery has ironically slowed down.

Australia Post, the 207-year-old national postal service, has been furiously trying to reinvent itself amid the slow death of the letter and an edict from the federal government to become a corporatised entity.

The result? Crummy service.

Letters taking far longer to arrive, excruciating call centre waiting times, posties leaving tickets rather than trying to deliver parcels and business customers unhappy about urgent pick-ups being missed.

Wagga customers are subjected to the logic-defying situation of posting a letter to a local address and seeing it go via Canberra or Sydney to be sorted.

We should accept that much like newspapers, Australia Post is operating in a tricky corporate environment.

Its business model for letter delivery is collapsing before its eyes.

In a bid to stem the blood loss, the price of a regular stamp rose 40 per cent to $1 and regular letter delivery times were revamped from two to six days in January.

A few months earlier, Australia Post announced its first loss in 30 years, driven by a $381 million loss in its mail delivery arm but insulated by an increase in parcel deliveries.

In August, the company finally returned to profit, on the back of a massive restructure (read as: wholesale job cuts).

The urge for some in the government is no doubt to flog off Australia Post while it’s still in the black.

But that would be a folly.

For many older people, especially those in regional areas, the “snail mail” service is a communication lifeline. It’s a necessity, not a luxury.

As such, it belongs in the hands of government.

If it were to be privatised, like Telstra was, higher costs and poorer service would become the norm.

And regional Australia, as is so often the case, would be the biggest loser.