The main point is that certain types of jobs like customer service reps, secretaries and sales people are being disproportionately affected. If it was just general fears about the economy overall one would expect a more broad-based impact.
Especially when it's actually "services sales jobs a little up, manufacturing a little down"...
Seniors in my org still have them and they make things happen, partly through being able to use the senior's name to open doors and force action but mostly though their deep organisational knowledge.
All a boss has to say is "I need everyone involved in Project X in a meeting in London next week" and it's done, the boss just gets told when and where to get into a car.
Neither has any free will to deviate from the script. Both are useless in any case that's not handled by the script. The silicon one has better wait times though.
I mean, it's my money, you need to justify your reasons for deserving it.
I mean, if you _want_ a customer base that hates you and will leave the very minute something better comes along, I guess you can choose to do that. I just have no idea why you would.