Royal Mail Price Increases

A bumper rise in first-class postage rates

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...stamp-to-85p

I suppose that, on the positive side, my pile of decimal stamps has leapt in value. I also find that, if I post early enough in the day, a second class stamp will often get correspondence to the recipient by the next day.

That's an incredibly high first class rate when compared to the United States. At the current conversion rate, 85 pence is roughly $1.13, so it's more than double the 55 cents we pay in the US, and when you consider that you could send a letter across the street, maybe 100 feet, or from Hawaii to Maine - perhaps 5 or 6 thousand miles for that same 55 cents, I suppose it's really a bargain. Does anyone know if the same 55 cent first class rate applies to Guam, a US territory, and if so, would you be able to send a first class letter from there to the mainland US (a couple thousand miles further still) for that same 55 cent rate? If so it's an even bigger bargain!

Letters and similar are a declining market and, within that, how often do you need to get a letter there the next day, rather than in two days? The price hike seems to reflect the fact that the first class post is moving from being the norm to a niche product.