Paper boys may not be obsolete but the number of people working as bike couriers are nowhere near of what they used to be....Children delivering newspapers is not the same as a bike messenger delivering packages or other items...Bike messengers are an endangered species and their road to extinction begun with the invention of fax machine and later the internet...Bike courier is not good as a long term employment, most of these jobs were done temporarily by university/college students as a means to make some extra money for their tuition.