So how are the messengers doing?
 

Recent thoughts

As probably discussed to death on this very forum, it does not take a genius to realize that "messenger" scence has blown out of proportion compared to the number of actual working bike messengers (you know, those guys who actually deliver packages for a living, often on cheap mountain bikes). Here in Finland most messenger companies are increasing the number of CAR messengers and trying to make bikemessing just another joke job (read Barbara Ehrenreich for definiton) - suitable summer job for "young people" who really don't need a living wage - or try to turn messengers into riding billboards. The wages are diminishing and a steady flow of rookies keeps the companies (if not the few remaining clients) happy. The day when a company employs "messengers" to ride around town just to advertise is not very far off.

Meanwhile, the "scene" is very active, hip and in vogue. A media darling. And it's killing all the half-hearted attempts to unionize the very corrupt industry and what little credibility and respect messengers still have workwise.

The doom mongers have written the entire industry off quite a few times in the past, but I myself am now increasingly sceptical.

Is the end of an industry far off? Could the new strict pollution guidelines work in messengers advantage in the future? Are we just billboards?

My compliments Bikkhu on a nicely crafted post...a little rare around here.
The topic on another hand is going to bring out the worst.
Here in Ottawa, there is no glamour in messengering...with the winter these guys are looking like something out of Road Warrior...not a criticism...that's just the way you get when you work in the elements. God bless them.

Around here the turnover is quite low from what I have seen. I'm sure that isn't the case everywhere, but job satisfaction seem to be good among the messengers I know. Nobody is getting rich doing it, but they seem to be happy with the company they work for and the working conditions. I can't say for sure how wages are compared to years ago, you may be right on that point.

Until another cost effective way of doing the job appears from nowhere or the reason for the work goes away then no, it will not disappear.

things I see in the future that may help or hurt the business:
electronic court filings---done properly, it removes more than half the messengers here

energy prices and peak oil----will likely cause a resurgence in the business provided it happens slowly, big changes will cause a collapse or deep recession and the messenger biz is not recession proof at all

suburban development has been a problem since it started, the less concentrated the businesses are that use us, the less business there is for us to do

anything that hinders auto's that doesnt kill the economic activity is good for us----although, even that isnt fool proof, I service two law firms for example that do nothing but auto accident litigation

I think there will always be work for those that want it, but for the last 10 years here locally its been stagnant and us indie's are destroying the big courier co's. In 2001 we had around 30-35 messengers, most making around $3-500/wk, now we have 18 messengers and about 5-6 are making double that, 3-4 make $500/wk, the rest are lucky to make $250 a week. It has brought some stability to the business though. About 10 of us are what you'd call lifers, we will be riding until we cant ride any longer. A few have been doing it for 10 years plus, ive been in the delivery business since 1986, barring physical injuries im not going away, ive fought too hard and spilled too much sweat to stop now.

don't know if its the time of year but iv noticed work is slacking off over here,
iv seen people swap companies in an effort to get make more money but with the steady flow of rookies no companies will ever care about loosing a good courier, when u say billboard do you mean for random products like red-bull and some random taxi company or an ad for the courier company(as there is only one company here that has a "uniform" which advertises the company where the courier gets a 12% bonus for wearing all week)
car messengers aren't too popular over here but the number of honda 50's is on the up.
and as far as the people who think theyre messengers but not-who dont deliver packages for a living i think that whole scene is getting a bit wierd, i can make sence of a complete bike nerd for a hobby and what not but with the courier bags that have never seen a radio for dispatch,people who lock up about 10times a day and still have a key dangling from their wrist all day.
but thats effort put into hating that i just dont want to watse.

the thing with dublin is its always been building out not up, but now that high-rise buildings are being encouraged more companies are moving into the city= more work=happy messenger.
i dont think the work will ever die in ireland at least but the profit over people maintality in courier companies around the world will stay strong.

It'll be interesting to see if people move towards more of a semi-cargo/porteur role, rather than simply carrying around a bunch of paper, especially if high gas prices and congestion increase to cost of van/car based delivery.

The problem is the advent of the internet left a huge class of time dependent documents safe. As more and more "under penalty of perjury" type documents start to accept various methods of e-signature the number of paper deliveries is going to dwindle dramatically over the next decade. After that what is left? Huge things? Probably longer but still maybe another 15-20 years. Eventually paper deliver will be a thing of the past.

dont know about America but all legal documentation in ireland must be the original physical document, so our main clients are solicitors and law firms.
we also have a lot of media companies delivering original videos of whatever.
print companies for text and photos are good clients too.

Yeah for now. Neither of those are going to last forever though.

neither will i so i don't mind

I wouldn't expect either of those to outlast you either unless you are pretty old.

depends on how well its implemented and a whole host of other factors

the US federal court system went to electronic filing, all it did was take a few filing runs away, original new cases, pro hac vice, and anything else requiring money remained, and anything of any size is still done by us too because the court requires pdf's in little 2mb chunks so most law firms blow them off and just have it done in person if they have a sizable filing

one of my clients is a court reporting agency, I thought electronic transfer of documents would kill my business with them, it didnt, people still want paper and videos dont email cause they are too big

I see alot more discs and video tapes in my bag these days but the work is still there.

i get you, i do aggree with you in the way the internet will take more and more of our busieness but im sure there will still be a demand, small as it may be, for some sort of office hour messenger.its come this far hasn't it?
were still living in the dark ages in a way, we have no underground transport system, all of our Gardí or police are unarmed, as a nation of 4million we only have 2 skate parks and loads of little things like that
it might die out faster in some areas of the world... who knows
location location location i suppose?

I wouldn't be surprised to see further decline of messengers but exponential increase of bicycle commuters over the next 20 years. Higher gas prices, increased attraction to cities, further urbanization of the world will all contribute to more people realizing bicycles are a great way to get to work and around the city.

As far as messengers, all the points have been made already and I don't see any new markets opening up for them outside of advertising.

The messenger industry is only held hostage by electronic advancement in govt/legal/corp bureaucracy in the US, excluding NYC to some extent as well as Chicago & a few other cities with dense urban development.

Everywhere else, while electronic innovation has certainly hurt, the diversification into other markets continues. Messengers as a retail service available to anyone will be a reality in the future, a money-saving reality to anyone who values their own time above a certain rate per hour or otherwise. the industry is also making good strides in promoting our leg of the journey as Green, which makes it very attractive to many these days. (at least around here) Sure the past 10 years have been tough, but to hinge the fate of a worldwide industry on the state of legal filings in the US is short-sighted.

the industry will never die out as a whole until

A. People cease to need physical objects delivered in short amounts of time (star trek times? Beam me a box of #48 graphite refills, Scotty!)

B. People cease to exist.

or

C. Bicycles are outlawed.

i have respect for anyone doing a job that requires physical labor, be it a bike messenger or an iron worker or whatever.

See this is the type of forward thinking that will result in future jobs rather then the assumption that future implementations of electric documents and file and file transfer will be no better then current ones. Food and items are going to need delivery for a long long time.

Every time I have a slow day I worry for the future, and then the next day I'm slammed. I've never had a decline in yearly income since 1996. Things are always getting better, and I know I'm making more than I would have if I woulda used my degree in education. I do worry about e-signatures in the future, but I am much happier when I deliver a CD over a file box. I see ups and downs as far as progress goes.
In 1996 there were three of us in Charlotte, NC. We now have around 15 riders, and only one company paying guys as contractors.
I plan on riding it out as long as possible. I'm not sure if we'll ever go away. I deliver food, hardware, all sorts of crap on top of the usual documents. I also do nine runs a day of interoffice paperwork/checks (main office to accounting satellite).
Sometimes I wish I could stop feeling like an old man worrying about my future all the time, but with two kids it sure is hard.
It's still the best job in the world.

if your original system of original paper documents lasted through the xerox phase, the fax machine and the beginnings of e-mail / the internet i wouldn't be surprised at all if you guys stay near your roots and stick with the original documents.

big ups to ireland.

Except the pay right? or does even that get decent after enough exprience?

Do any of you guys deliver bigger packages? In London I never see any cargo delivies other than a sandwich compay who have people out with trailers. I have read about some guy in NY who has an xtracycle. Seems like a good idea to allow get more work but would you miss out on other work because you would be slower? I would have thought there would be a market for it especially if you market the green thing but I don't see anyone doing it. So maybe there is no market.

I've been at it long enough, and I'm fortunate enough that I found a niche. I'm making more than I ever thought I would when I started out in '96 making $6.25 an hour.
There are probably three or so guys doing really well here (one is my boss).

I do a lot of file boxes in ones and twos.
Also paper and supplies.

Christ - I make $400-500 a week easy delivering food by bike, and this is part-time work (15+/-).

I gotta find something like that up here.