Visiting cards - do we need them?

The other day while snooping around in the office, i noticed a friends visiting card at his desk and it got me thinking. I've been working for 2 1/2 years now and i haven't felt the need of a visiting card. No its not because i don't want people visiting me, but i don't see any practical purpose of a visiting card for someone whose job profile involves sitting at a desk for 9 hours a day. Its not like we regularly bump into CEOs of multinational companies while carrying out our daily chores and get the opportunity to talk them into outsourcing their work to our company by exchanging visiting cards.

My current role belongs to that lower half of the hierarchy where we take pride in hating our job, not trying to get more business by distributing visiting cards. Most of the people I know use visiting cards as a mere status symbol. They distribute it to their friends, use it to note down numbers, give their own number or as scrap paper for quick notes. Companies should do the environment a favor and save paper by providing visiting cards only to those with senior management positions or marketing roles.