Afew weeks ago JPMorgan scrapped voicemail. Now anyone trying to attract the attention of its bankers has to email, text or call their mobiles instead.

As practically no one leaves messages on landlines any more, the bank reasoned, there was no point continuing to pay $10 a month per line for the service. Petty, came the inevitable complaint: the bank made $22bn profit last year and so to kill voicemail in order to save a few million made no sense.

Yet the move, which follows a similar one by Coca-Cola late last year, makes complete sense. Voicemail has become a cumbersome, last-ditch form of communication, used only by people who have failed to solicit a response by email or for the half-dozen people in the world who are so technologically backward they have failed to master email.