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The local NEWSPAPER REPORTER is largely a thing of the past. A modest-sized newspaper would have one or even two dozen reporters, more photographers, and editors. Then there were all the ad and classified salesmen, pressmen, and newspaper delivery people. Today, most of these jobs are either gone, or a mere fraction of what they once were leaving communities largely uninformed about what’s going on around them. Could be one of the most significant loses of all.

I started pumping gas at my neighborhood Texaco station at the age of 12. I held that job to the age of 18. That job bought me my first Honda trail bike...my first motorcycle and my first car. It also provided the money for my movie dates. It was one of the best times of my life.

In the 1970s in my rural small town we had a 'party line' which means the _entire street_ shared one phone line, I would often pick the phone up and hear my neighbors talking. As a kid this was more than fun

There used to be a milk and egg man that delivered these items when I was a child. Once I had chest congestion and a doctor made a house call and gave me some pills to treat it. Back then it was like living in Mayberry. Even though I lived in a fairly large city many people left their houses with the doors unlocked and didn't worry. People used rakes and not noisy blowers to get up leaves. A few even used mowers without engines. When you went to elementary you started off the school day with the pledge of allegiance often under a portrait of George Washington.

In the 60's, we not only had a milkman, we had a bread man that came around with all kinds of baked goods which were always a treat. Jelly rolls were always the best. The job for kids that has pretty much disappeared is newspaper carrier. I always had money in my pocket from delivering newspapers from the age of around 8 until I got my first job at 14 managing the newspaper branch office.

Mobile TV repairmen were a thing back then. The "Tube Jockey" as we call him would stock enough spare parts in his truck to fix your TV set. ( most failures were vacuum tubes that just plugged into the set ) Console TVs weigh about 100 lbs so removing it to his shop was a last resort.

*OH BOY here it goes. Doorman, Wash Room Attendant, Street Sweepers, Ice Man, Coal Man, Rags and bone man, Mobile Knives and Scissors Sharpener, Fuller brush Men, Door to door Vacuum Salesman, Drive in Burger Joint with car service. If I think of more I'll let you know!*

The photo retoucher. Many think there was no photo retouching before Photoshop existed, but prior to digital retouching it was done by hand on the negative, slide, and print. Done with dyes and inks and very fine brushes and a magnifying glass. A true art form in itself, but as the customer it was very expensive to have done because it was so labor intensive for the retouching artist.

My mom was a whiz on the old IBM Selectric. She was also trained in shorthand.

My late mum was a telephone switchboard operator, firstly for the Royal Air Force based in Germany after WW2, then in the UK for the GPO (General Post Office). She was the first ever supervisor in the first direct dial telephone exchange in Sheffield before leaving to become a mum (to little me) in 1963. RIP mum, 1932-1991.

The shoe repair shop (shoe maker/cobbler) is a thing of the past, as is the tailor shop when most suits were individually tailored. Then there was the bread man. I remember as a child my mother having bread and pastries delivered. And then, of course, there was the traveling salesmen. Watkins and Fuller brush come to mind, but there were also encyclopedia salesmen, Vacuumed cleaner salesmen, etc. Doctors also made house calls back in those days.

Another that you missed --- the "Ice Man" --- the guy that delivered cubic foot sized ice blocks to homes to be placed into "Ice Boxes" before refrigerators were commonly available in the 50s

I am 76 years old, and my parents had home delivery of Dairy products, Milk, Cream, Butter, and Eggs at six houses in five states for the 19 years that I lived with them. In all those years we NEVER had milk delivered in round bottles, the quarts were in square bottles and 1/2 Gallons were in rectangular bottles all of them were sealed with foil caps. And the Dairies provided insulated 'Milk Boxes'. The pix in your video of milk trucks all appear to be from the 1930s or '40s. My parents continued home delivery until the late 1970s. I still have their last "Milk Box" from the 'Atlanta Dairies'.

Nothing like watching a few of these videos to make you feel old. 👵 What a nostalgic ride down memory lane, some days I wish I could go back to simpler times.

When I was in college in West Palm Beach, Florida in the early 70s, I got a job at a residential hotel for seniors over on the island of Palm Beach as an elevator operator. The hotel still had a manual elevator and the elderly residents loved getting on the elevator and watching me close both the cage door and main doors, and then deliver them to the second or third floor. I loved the job because there was lots of downtime and I was allowed to bring my books and study between the occasional trips.

I wish there were some gas stations where you could get service like the 50s. We had one nearby into the 80s. I know gas is expensive but I’d gladly pay a little more to know my tires were aired and oil checked. When we’d go on family vacations I remember my dad stopping at them and checking everything was ok.

What's never mentioned in these types of videos is the old "ding-ding" when you pulled up to a gas pump. There was always a wire that stretched across the ground.

I worked in Hollywood in the 60s and 70s as a copiest. That's the person who draws the musical notes, rests, time and key signatures etc on a musical score. There were essentially two types. Transcribing copiest and Finish copiest. The transcriber would listen to the artist(s) perform the song, and, in real time, write/draw the score. When the song was over, the transcriber would have a pretty accurate transcription of the song, in "Fake book" format (1 page, melody/chords/lyrics). That "Fake sheet" would go to the Finish copiest who would hand draw all the same musical notes and figures, but put it in that beautiful calligraphy format that we think of when we see a finished piece of sheet music.

I worked as a gas station attendant for a short time in the 1960's, I'm sorry to say. I even took training for it at a technical school. I wasn't meant for that line of work by any means and was fired for being too slow. But I was heavily pressured into taking any kind of a job by an overbearing father. Somehow I managed to recover my self respect and went on to become a Graphic Artist. But there's another job largely taken over by computers and automation.

Speaking of typists…the invention of carbon paper had already put a lot of them out of work. Before that, every document that you needed a copy of had to be retyped for every copy you wanted. Big companies had ‘typing pools’ that just typed out copies all day.

I was talking to someone in line at the grocery store about how sad it was now we have to wait for the woman to ring up our items and then beg them for us. How back in the day they used to have 'bag boys'. They would bag your groceries, pushed the cart out to the car and put your groceries in your trunk. Now that was service!

Interesting! My Great Grandmother lived on a dairy farm and delivered milk and eggs on a horse drawn wagon. My Dad was a bowling pin setter. My Mom, an Engineering Department Secretary, filled in at Illinois Bell Telephone Company as an operator during a strike. Times have changed! AI will bring more changes in the coming days!

I was a gas station attendant in the 1950s. I remember the Helms bakery truck coming by the house daily and the ice man. We had an ice box in those days and got ice once a week.

I loved that picture of Wolfman Jack! He was a good friend of my father’s and I remember him fondly from being a kid. In person he was nothing like his radio persona, rather he was a gentle and soft-spoken man, or at least that’s how I remember him but that was a looong time ago!

A&P use to have "bag boys" and the would put your groceries into baskets and give you a card. You'd get your car and bring it to the front of the store the baskets would come out on a huge roller system and a man would take your ticket and they would load everything you bought into the trunk of your car. A&P was doing this where I live until the late 80s. Much much better times!!!

In Australia, we had the "Dunny Man". When there was no sewerage, the dunny man would take his "Night Cart" from door to door to collect the waste. The dunny man would usually access outhouses, or "dunnies", via the back lane, and would visit every night to empty the toilet for the next morning.

The tv repairman that came to the house is no longer a thing. Also the shoe saleman who could size your foot and fit your shoes properly. I really missed this service when I couldn't find someone to help me with fitting my child's shoes. (I was a pin setter at our college lanes.) Great video. Thanks.. ❤👀

My Mom was a switchboard operator, and one of my brothers first job was being a pin setter at the Union Depot in St. Paul MN.

I grew up in the 40's & 50's and remember most of these occupations. I worked as a Gas Station attendant for a while and some of my friends worked as Pin Setters at the bowling alley. During the 40's milk was still being delivered by horse & wagon in some parts of town. Bread was also home delivered at that time. And don't forget the Fuller Brush Man!

Plenty of gas station attendants here in NJ. There are still attendants at stations that offer full service. They just may not wash your windshield unless you ask nicely.

Film development. MY husband and I almost went into business as one of those 24hr quick film processing "stores"/kiosks. Whew. It was just a few years later that digital cameras began to take over photo-taking for all but special events and those stores, along with video stores have nearly disappeared.

In England, how about the bus conductor, who issued tickets to passengers before the job was given to the driver to save money. Other roles I can think of that have almost competely died out: newspaper delivery boy( far more places sell papers and fewer people buy them). television repairman( no one has television sets repaired and they're generally reliable), ticket collectors on railway stations( either stations don't use them or have automated barriers) and companies that undersealed cars( most cars don't rust until they are very old).

In the mid-1980s I rode a man-operated elevator to the Senate Library in the dome of the US Capitol. The gentleman wore white gloves and had to physically close the gates. I think there was a small fold down seat for him.

I still know how to type the numbers on a keyboard and don't use the keypad to do this. I learned to type on a typewriter in school. The younger workers around me are always wowed by that, LOL. But they sometimes think I'm writing in a different language when I use cursive it's a shame they didn't continue teaching that in schools today.

In the early 21st century there were people who made their living on a computer site called youtube. These jobs were replaced by Artificial intelligence. And now youtubers exist only in our memories.

I was a projectionist at the Lyric Theater in Yuma for awhile way back in 1967/8. Learned to "Typeset" from my dad at the Yuma Daily Sun in Yuma back then too.

Speaking of typists, I remember a movie starring Joan Crawford (I think it was called "Autumn Leaves") in which she played a typist who worked at home. Not only did the character Miss Crawford portrayed have a typewriter but there was a big vertical frame that had on it either the original letter from which she was making copies or it had the letter that was being typed. I've seen that device only once and in that movie. Too I would think it unusual for that era that someone was doing secretarial work at home.. I took a typing class my first semester of high school (1979) and am so thankful I did. I wish I had applied myself more and learned more, but I do pretty well, I'd say. I later volunteered for the Red Cross Book Fair in my community and in the donations we would sometimes get typing manuals, those tall books that you could stand up on the top of your desk and look at while you practiced. The manuals were bound at the top and you flipped a page back over the top when you went to the next page.

Love the video and the memories. Takes me back.

I remember the uniformed gas station attendants that filled your tank, checked the oil level and tire pressure, and cleaned the windshield. The Texaco guys wore these snappy black leather bowties, and handed out cardboard 'fireman' hats to us kids. Our milkman had a horse and wagon, which my Dad particularly .appreciated as he was an avid gardener.... [you figure it out, LOL]. In my Grandparent's town in Northern Ontario, the rotary telephone had not yet arrived, you actually spoke to the switchboard operator and stated what number you wanted to call, and the numbers were only four [4] digits. Incidentally, my local municipality of Coquitlam, BC still has a bylaw mandating station attendants to pump your gas, and prohibiting self-serve. But that's all they will do, and they sure don't wear snappy uniforms....

I learned how to type write on a manual typewriter and take shorthand (still know how today). The electric typewriter became popular, the magnetic card reader, the dictaphone, two-way intercom. Later, the word processor and finally the computer. I was lucky to have learned it all. Things have changed so much over time. No casual Fridays back in the day. You dressed up everyday. Dresses, skirts suits, hose, high heels. Never would you think of wearing pants, slacks or jean anything into the office. Men wore white shirts, a tie, suit and dress shoes. Yes, they even wore dress hats and an overcoat. Business schools taught, how to be a professional secretary. how to dress, style your hair and office etiquette. Cursive handwriting was graded too. Glad, to have experienced all these transitions.

Shoe repair, luggage and purse repair, retred tire shops, clothing alterations, independent butcher shops to name a few.

I worked as a radio DJ for 30 years. It was killed by corporate greed first. Next, overpaid consultants and their limited playlists, telling listeners what they should like. Then, evolving technology led to alternatives to radio as a music medium. such as satellite, MP3, internet/streaming, etc, which proved to be 100x better. The final nail in the coffin was the automation system, which killed it for me. When I started in the 70s, radio was live and local 24/7. Now, RoboDJ runs the show. It fools some people, because the hear a DJ talking, they assume it's live. The corrupt FCC has deregulated the whole business. At one time, a licensed operator (me) was required to oversee the transmitter at all times the station is on the air. Now, a computer does it. Commercial broadcast radio is dead, at least as a music medium. RIP Wolfman Jack.

I pumped gas at the Brookfield Mobil in CT without a uniform.

Jobs that are dead, Firemen (Stokers), Traffic Control cops (used to be on everyother corner), Teachers, (used to run classrooms of 30 students), Ambulance DOCTORS/Nurses (now replaced by EMT hacks), Shop Clerks (people who knew the stock and use of the products they sold.) Also, in the olden days a Good Catalog was practically a manual on how to use a product.

We no longer have secretarial pools. You would drop off a hand-written report and they would call you when it was typed and ready to be proof-read. If everything was good, you would tell them the distribution and they would make the correct number of copies and drop them into the company mail. That reminds me, the company internal mail room is gone too.

Signmaker. They would hand paint signs for businesses, schools, banners. Exit signs, fire extinguisher signs, entrance/exit, company names, reserved parking places. Some would paint the signage on the windows of grocery stores. Huge brush calligraphy advertising the price of hamburger/soup/potatoes, painted right on the window with tempera paint. Wash it off and paint new prices next week. Some would paint the gold leaf lettering on executive office doors. Some fire trucks in days of old had real gold leaf insignia. No Photoshop, but they might do a "Cut and paste" now and then. In their case they were actually cutting and actually pasting, with real blades and real paste..🙂

It will be intteresting to see a similar video 20 - 30 years from now. Truck drivers, super market checkouts, letter carriers, tax preparers, etc.

Typesetters and proofreaders were essential to the printing business, from the time of Ben Franklin to the mid-1980s. At every newspaper or print shop, typesetters would set stories in lead type, one letter at a time. Once the story had been printed, the letters would be melted down and used again. The proofreader had to go over every word of every article or job, and have a sharp eye and memory. I was a proofreader for two large printing companies in the 1970s, and I had to be able to recognize around 400 typefaces at a glance. But computerization, in the 80s, killed these jobs off very quickly.

Great video! I'm 55 and I remember most of these professions. I even interviewed for a telephone answering service in 1992 and they were hand-switching lines. Gas attendants still in NJ and one place here in MA, but not with the service-attitide of yesteryear. Thanks!

I know a man who trained for Radio / TV repair. Before he graduated, the cheap throw away sets from asia started being available. Everyone just bought new ones when the old ones quit, so the shops all closed. Then he became a draftsman for industrial drawings. Ten years later CADCAM computers started doing all the drawings. He became a machine repairman at a car factory. With the cheap imports, they went out of business. The poor man just could not win.

Our bread man would follow right behind the milkman (milkman said there were "lots of things to be milked"). And then the the plumber and mailman, Fuller Brush man and insurance man. Mom called them the "back door men". We kids were warned to stay outside while they came and went when dad was at work. Seems mom was always very tired and would have a headache when dad finally got home. He would ask for some kind of job BJ, HJ...??? Dad worked a lot of over time in those days. Said the secretaries needed time taking "dick-tation". We had lots of uncles and aunts, nieces, nephews, cousins "coming" and going back then. These were busy times for everyone I guess......

The Retro Decade Revival Project will bring these jobs back into the public mainstream.

I was a 'compositor'. That means I set type for magazines, newspapers and books. Anything printed. That of course today is done by a computer and the writer ends up being the final step as 'hot type' is no longer used. My next job was as a 'silver-based' photographer. Now anyone with a cell phone can be a photographer and you can tell right away if you like the shot or not as you don't have to have the film developed.

1. Ice delivery man. 2. The Laundry man would pick up certain types of our laundry at our home and return it a few days later …. Clean and pressed. 3. Not really a job but we would bring pop bottles back to the store and they were worth a nickel per bottle. 4. Insurance man would come to our house each month to collect the monthly life insurance payment.

I still remember as a kid in the seventies our neighborhood full service gas station. It was one of the last full service stations around and it’s owner was a neighbor of my grandparents so we always got an extra level of personal service which usually included a free soda or popsicle from the chest freezer full of frozen treats for my brother and I. The big box store I work for has chosen the sound of the full service station bell, the one that alerted the attendant that a customer was waiting, as the sound that notifies our grocery pick up employees that a customer is waiting in the parking lot for their order. So I hear that sound once in a while when in the back room at work and it always transports me back to a summer day in the 1970’s, pulling into the gas station while bouncing around in the back seat of our wood-paneled station wagon (our parents loved us but seat belt use was not common in those days!) with my younger brother anticipating the friendly interaction with the attendant who would chat with our Mom and ask us if we wanted a Coke or a frozen treat. Personal service is really a thing of the past and even where it exists now people are so rushed that often both the customer and service worker barely interact. I’m glad I can remember a time when that was not the case!

Strangely, thanks to ‘eco-awareness’ milk delivery in glass bottles has had a resurgence here in the UK (supermarkets only sell milk in plastic containers or cartons). We have two milk delivery services competing in my area.

News paper delivery boy. Out in all weather on my bike with two heavy paper bags. Also had to collect cash and used a paper punch on customers cards.

The pictures of the typing pool. My mother worked in one. She said as long as the typewriter was clacking away the boss was happy. She corresponded regularly with all of our relatives. Wrote many letters to our congressman...

Paperboy, which I was, grocery bagger, street sweeper, drug store photo developer, house calls by doctors, in home furniture repairman, school nurse. To name a few.

I still use my travel agent and I'm old enough to remember when doctors made house calls!

My father used to work as a pin boy in a local bowlling ally that no longer exists

Doctors who made house calls. They were still common in my childhood.

Hi, I was a gas pump jockey, film projectionist, bowling pin setter (5-pin only), and my buddy was a milkman so this video really hits home. I see store cashiers as becoming obsolete soon. Many stores are about 50-50 split but leaning towards self-check out. Value Village has gone 100% self-checkout. Bank tellers are getting pretty scarce too with the ATM being so popular. Door-to-door sales is gone as is the large library. Toys-r-us gone. Our local auto centre is gone too. All these have given in to the high demands of Google and online shopping. Can't beat Amazon; same-day or one-day delivery while I save traffic and cashier line-ups. Great video. Thanks

during the 70's, manual car washing was a business. My mom used to take her car to a place where cars were washed with a bucket of soapy water, sponge, and elbow grease. Then cleaned up with towels. It was customary to tip the washer too. With the automation of car washing places, that job has basically disappeared too. in the parking lot of certain grocery markets, there were people who offered to "watch your car" while you shopped. This was supposedly done to prevent car theft. And he expected a tip for doing so. Security cameras or simply change in culture made that job also vanished. short hand dictation has disappeared as a direct consequence of voice recording machines. medical transcription from recorded tape or mp3 recorded has disappeared as a consequence of voice to text software in computers. There might be a few out there still, but in masse, it is gone.

I worked at one of the last full serve gas stations in my city back in the early 90's. It was also one of the last that had an auto repair shop.

There are repair jobs gone. Radio repair, typewriter repair, copier repair (there are a few left), microfilm repair. ( I was in the last two groups.) In home PC repair. IBM did this that helped put computers in businesses...

Let''s not forget the toll booth cashier in the era of EZ-Pass.

Even in the late '60s, milk was still being delivered by horse and cart in suburban Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. A lot of cashier jobs have gone as have bank tellers. I spent 16 years working as a boiler operator, another job that has largely disappeared due to changing technology. Dark room operators and others who processed and printed photographs have also disappeared. Depending on your memory and era, lighting of gas lamps is also long gone. The railways would have some one whose job it was to tell drivers and firemen when their shift was and to make sure they were up in the early hours of the morning. The local blacksmith and farrier is a lot harder to find these days, might be because there are fewer horses and other changes.

Worth mentioning that in Oregon and New Jersey when you pull into a gas station an attendant pumps the gas for you, it's the law. (Though they don't clean your windshield or check your oil, lol.)

When I grow up, I want to be a linotype repairman.

Flight Engineers are also a tingof the past, my Dad and my Uncle were Flight Engineers, Both Retired when the position retired.

Wow, the memories! My mom was once a switchboard operator, she also was an overseas teletype operator, we use to have milk delivered to our sixth floor apartment in New York City, I remember riding an elevator with an operator. And, I was a projectionist in the Navy. Not anything like the pros in theaters, but still cool. I also pumped gas one summer in my teens. I also had a shoe shine stand in a barber shop, don’t see that much anymore.

I wish two of these jobs still existed today, the gas station attendant and the milk man. I worked as a gas station attendant my first year in college. How nice it was to have a friendly (or maybe not so friendly) attendant, fill your tank, clean your windshield, check the fluids in your engine and the air pressure in your tires. What could be nicer than opening your door in the morning and there was your milk, or other dairy products just waiting, saving you from having to go to the grocery store. Don't forget the Charle's Chips man who used to deliver big tins of potato chips right to your door. Then there was the ice cream man with his bells, selling ice cream to the little and not so little kids. There are still a few around but they are very rare these days. We've even got stores with self-service checkout where the customers have to ring up and bag their own groceries. We have moved away from a society where there was convenient friendly service, and we are worse off for it.

As late as 2005 I worked at a fuel station that offered full-service eg. fuel top-up, windscreen cleaning, oil check, and radiator level check. We often got people commenting on that. It no longer exists. Hello Albany WA.

Our milkman in the late 60's early 70's was named Ben. He just walked in the unlocked front door with a loud cheerful greating early in the morning. My oldest brother named him Bengay. Meant something entirely different back then.

Toll takers on highways. With the invention of computerized scanners, the toll taker jobs seem to have disappeared, overnight

The fact that no one sits at a phone switchboard, or does physical filing or hand types letters, or any of a million other things is why we all have so much higher living standards than a couple of generations ago. Technology and computers have made everything we do easier and cheaper - reducing the cost of everything we ever buy. So while the past is quaint and seems delightful, that was bought at the cost of our affluence today.

In the industry of printing commercial business forms, there existed the necessity of a layout and paste-up artist. They'd manually draw forms and all of their components. Type would be composed and provided on a sheet. The lines of the form were created by hand and type was cut and pasted into place. Other form components were created and merged into what was called a "mechanical" piece of art. This mechanical was used to produce a printing plate to print the forms. All gone!

I remember the milk man. On hot days we would ask him for a chunk of ice that we could crunch on. Also we had a bread man that came around every week. He had this large basket like container full of different kinds of bread including cinnamon rolls and the like.

We still have Street sweepers in our Colorado town and the last one here where we lived.

My family had a milkman up into the early 90's. Our friends and neighbors were kind of perplexed, lol.

I used to spay oil on the dirt and gravel roads to keep the dust down years ago.

Do You Know The Way To San Jose song mentioned “stars who never were are parking cars and pumping gas “

Thanks for these memories. So bittersweet 😢

When I was a bike messenger we had regular interoffice memo runs the phone company contracted with our company. After that I leased a taxicab. Email and "rideshare apps" have made these two jobs obsolete.

Not gone yet but I believe that within the next decade or so, check out cashiers in grocery stores and other retail outlets will be a fond memory

I recall being the world's worst splicer's helper at the C&P Telephone Co. It was a summer job. The Splicer I helped was an artist. My work, I would liken to a Pablo Picaso.

Film developers. Back in 2002 (just 21 years ago), there was a movie starring Robin Williams called "One Hour Photo" about a film developer (Williams) who sees the photos from one particular family. Less than 8 years from that movie's run, film-based photographs were all but gone.

Jobs now largely performed by aircraft computers are navigator, flight engineer, and radio operator. Except for highly specialized subfunctions of those jobs - especially in the military - personnel performing these jobs are extremely rare.

Back in the 70's the telex operators were the queens of the office... if you wanted your outgoing telex message moved to the top of the pending pile, you had to be in the good graces of those ladies! Regular boxes of chocolates helped 😉 In fact I learnt to operate the telex machines myself, so I could send my own telex messages when the ladies were on lunch, or their was a spare machine due to one of the ladies being on holiday etc... An invaluable skill back in the day, and no useless !

Seeing switchboard operators makes me think of "Hong Kong Phuey", a cute little cartoon.

In 1970 I aspired to go into radio broadcasting. In retrospect that would have been a bad move. Few could have predicted "network consolidation."

Giving away that I'm an OG, years ago I was a gas station attendant and a DJ, although not at the same time!

60 years ago most of my friends on my street looked like the milk man

Here in the Philippines there are still pump attendants.telegram is also no longer exist nowaday, movie theatres were like mushrooms before but now you can see theatres at the mall.also radio sales decrease, everything changes as time goes by.

It is still illegal to pump your own gasoline in New Jersey. I guess residents of NJ aren't as competent as people in other states.

My father was born in 1898 he was a iceman

There is a state that gas station attendant is required by law. In New Jersey it is illegal to pump your own gas. The small town where I live there are still a few has stations that have gas station attendants.

Travel Agents still exist, but the economics have shifted... You used to go to the travel agent to book a flight--any flight. I would go and book a flight to visit my folks for the holidays. No hotels, rental cars, or anything like that. It was a low margin/high volume business, but since everybody used it, they made enough to cover expenses. The real profit was in booking all-inclusive vacations and the like. When the Internet took away the low margin/high volume business of booking a flight, travel agents pretty much only had the all-inclusive stuff to live off of. So they still exist but there are fewer of them.