The Most Useless Electronic Program

Actually, they can track the package. You'll just have to go to the post office with the tracking info. not very efficient for the customer. but 70aarcuda is right, it's a delivery conformation, not tracking service. the scanners we use are downloaded at the end of the route. so, if your package was delivered at 1:00, it's not going to show up on the system until later in the evening.
As for being cheaper online, it is, they want you to use the online postage.
I don't know why. It's a management thing, kills jobs and they wonder why the PO is broke.
As for it being useless, it actually works quite well, not only do they track the packages that you pay for the service on, they track everything. That includes junk mail. They know when and where everything is. That's why the "it got lost in the mail" thing really isn't true any more. if it was misplaced, 9 time out of 10 it was because of a human error, either a postal employee or the sender. you wouldn't believe how often mis- addressed mail comes to me. I often know where it goes and it just shows up like magic.