The birds are AMEX effort to get into the very lucrative prepaid accounts market. Not really tied to what the economy has been doing. As its introduction was long after the financial crisis in 2008/2009.

There are the equivalents have long exist BEFORE AMEX tried to get into the market with their birds. AMEX is too late as the existing players have long been established and are still thriving. Of course having been taken advantage by the users NOT belong to the targeted market does not help AMEX at all. Hence the final house cleaning act.

The well-established prepaid accounts continue to thrive. You can ask Mamibear about it as she seems to have really good knowledge on those and their household owns a few of those.