In my opinion, electronic mail helps communication between people and businesses alike in many ways, but only to an extent.
Recently, the United States Post Office announced it would possibly attempt to give anyone with a P.O. Box an email address. While this can be good for a number of reasons, it can also be inferior. Email is the single fastest communication medium available over long distances. It is also cheaper and faster than making long distance phone calls even to the opposite side of the world. But we cannot allow email to serve as our primary source of reliability. Managing checks, bills, taxes, and etc can not only be a risky endeavor over the Internet, but in some cases the complete reliability of email is not so reliable. Between you and the recipient any number of things could go wrong. Of course with standard postage this is true as well, but the number of things that could happen are dramatically fewer. I believe speed and reliability for a message to get to a location is the key to good communication. Getting the message across quickly and accurately makes all the difference. However there is a price to pay when email is that chosen medium of communicating. This price is the very reason email should not be used as a means to an end with other types of communication and that includes standard postage. But as an alternative for people just as the phone is an alternative to a letter, I believe email makes excellent communication, especially for collaboration as well as saving time and money for the individual and for business.