Really it isn't.
It is sort of like secretaries and receptionists. They were replaced with Microsoft Office and Phone trees. The problem is that you have frustrated customers and high paid executives spending their time standing at copy machines.
They are trading a very short term gain for a long term loss.
I worked with two companies closely, one that was privately held and kept their old timers around, the son of the founder still came to work a couple days a week and he was in his late seventies. They have been on a slow but steady expansion. The other got rid of it's older employees and support personal. It recently filed for bankruptcy. I laughed and laughed when I heard that because I predicted it ten years ago.
I will say this, that publicly held companies have to show a certain amount of profit (not growth, profit) every quarter as their only value seems to be what their stock is doing. This leads to stupid decisions to gain a small boost in stock price. Like spinning off your specialty branch or going cheap on quality. Or doing something that will get your long term customers mad to please a tiny fraction of the population that will never buy your product any way.