Postal service officials of course deny that the Staples counters (which are currently limited to stores in California, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts) are meant to replace traditional post offices or postal service employees. In a recent video message to employees, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe declared, “This is all new business for us. The idea we’re somehow or other taking jobs away, that Staples is supplanting the postal office, there is no intention of this.” He compared the Staples counters to other private-sector alliances, such as having stamps available for sale at Costco. “It’s convenience, it’s access, it’s the way of the world,” he said. “I’m not gong to back away from it.” He rejected the notion that this represented a slow-motion privatization of the institution: “There is no interest in privatizing,” he said. “Do not let people get you confused with issues about privatization.”

There are a few problems with this dismissal of concerns. For one, it’s disingenuous to compare the installation of full-service postal counters at Staples (which are providing 80 percent of traditional postal services, all but registered mail and a few other services) with making it easier to buy stamps at the grocery store or drug store. No one objects to the latter.

Second, of course it’s not “all new business” being created at Staples. As a USPS spokeswoman I spoke with confirmed, one of the whole points of the Staples counters is to allow existing postal customers—including, say, small business owners who spend a lot of time at Staples— to take care of their shipping when they’re at Staples, and thereby shorten lines at the post office. “Some of that traffic that would go to the post office would go to Staples,” said the spokeswoman, Darleen Reid-deMeo. “That way, you’ve got our full attention and we can dazzle customers with how good we really are.”

And finally, to the extent that existing USPS business shifts from the post office to Staples, of course it reduces the need for hiring additional post office employees and increases the pressure to shorten hours or close branches in areas that are already getting relatively low traffic. (The postal service is in the midst of hiring some letter carriers, but the ranks of counter employees has been steadily declining by attrition—since 2008, the postal service has reduced its ranks by 200,000.) Donahoe admitted as much in a recent interview with USA Today, acknowledging that the Staples alliance could save money in employee costs even as he insisted that wasn’t the driving rationale. “Keeping our expenses down is no different than what any other business would do,” he said.