When I get a wild hair I make up a half-dozen 'match bundles' or 'match bindles'.

These are wooden matches, either strike anywhere or needing a striker. I include a great enough number of matches to keep the package from bending and breaking the wooden sticks. Usually four to six matches are about right. I include a strike if the matches require one. A striker can also be included for strike anywhere matches. Around this packet I wind a strip of wax paper to keep the tape from sticking to the matches, and to act as tinder.

I then seal this bundle between two pieces of industrial aluminum foil tape applied sticky side to sticky side. Before sealing the last section I squeeze out all the air. Once sealed I follow up with a plastic applicator that concentrated pressure and permanently bonds the adhesive. I follow with a pair of scissors to square up the edges and round the four corners.

The result is a airtight package that is quite small, typically about a quarter inch and just a touch longer than the matches contained. These can be tossed into jacket pockets, slid into seams and otherwise shoehorned in just about anywhere. I have dispersed so many I forget where they all are. I usually have one tucked, or loosely stitched, into the headband of whatever hat I am wearing.

The work boots I reserve for sloppy work has one slid in alongside the tongue. It has been there for over a decade. Dating back to when those boots were used for hiking. From experience I fully expect that if I pulled it out the bindle the matches would still work.

I like Bics. I like the mini-Bics even more simply because they are smaller and lighter. These match bundles are even smaller and lighter. If you wrap them tightly and seal them well they seem to last many years. I have tried ones I wrapped a dozen years ago and unless the foil was breached they were all good.

So, to answer the original question, matches are no IMHO completely obsolete. Match safes, those clunky hunks of brass or plastic, are pretty much obsolete. But sealing the matches into much smaller, expendable, packages of just a few matches makes sense to me.