Letters mailed by the US Postal Service

Japanese vending machines and American mail, both shrinking. Two icons of two cultures retiring on the same schedule, neither having a particular opinion about the other. The robot dispensing hot coffee in Tokyo cannot console the bulk-mail carrier in Cleveland.

Japan's vending-machine count has slipped from a peak of about 5.6 million in 2000 to under 4 million today, eroded by demographic shrinkage, shrinking convenience-store footprints, and contactless payments displacing the coin-fed model. USPS letter mail volume has also contracted: from about 200 billion pieces in 2006 to roughly 110 billion today, displaced by email and online billing. Both are stories about the disappearance of cash-and-paper transactions in two countries that defined them. Different machines, same retreat.

Two analogue logistics empires, gracefully retiring. Different countries, same century changing direction.