Since the advent of the fax machine, every few years, someone postulates about the kind of technology that will render bike messengers obsolete… to no avail. Like an endangered species that refuses to die, nothing can really kill them off and ironically, certain human advancements are ensuring their survival. Take video data for example. It’s still a lot easier to have terabytes sent over via bike than the internet.

According to Wired, there’s one only invention that can threaten the courier’s existence and it only exists in the genre of sci-fi: “Until someone concocts an effective form of particle teleportation, these things will keep at least some of the messenger industry on the street.”