@clive Is it possible that there’s a generational thing here as well.
I entered the workforce in 2006 and would consider myself part of the millennial digital native generation. The idea of printing out reports is very alien.
@clive@anildash Digital contracts have to have put a dent in things. When I bought a home in the early 00s, there were at least a thousand printed contract pages (with dozens of required signatures). Not to mention printed inspection reports. Nowadays, all those contracts and reports come in as PDFs or on a platform like DocuSign.
@clive I think an even bigger driver of the move away from paper was much MUCH better computer monitors: bigger, higher resolution, and brighter. CRTs were really really crappy.
Also: the drop in office paper use happened much earlier and was more dramatic than the total-paper-consumption line suggests, but the drop in office use was masked by the rise in paper use in boxes (due to Amazon).
@clive It happened recently that I wanted to write something on a piece of paper, and I couldn't find one! I had simply stopped using paper, and hadn't noticed...
Printer ink extortion has no doubt contributed to the decline in paper use.
@clive@anildash our filing cabinets at work are full to the point of concern about the floor collapsing… but I, as a major paper pusher, have not touched a single sheet of paper for work in 3 1/2 years, since the day we went home at the start of the pandemic. No need for paper clips, staples, sleeves, envelopes, any of it, at all, overnight.
And the need to move physical paper was about the only reason to be in the office. The world has changed but management is terrified of irrelevance.
@clive Additional thoughts:
I suspect the rise of very large displays is a factor. I used to print in order to read across multiple pages/documents for editing, etc.
Now, I can comfortably fit 2, 3, even 4 'pages' across my displays (which, also, are 'retina' displays, so have resolution akin to paper).
Printing used to be a time-saver for doing complicated work. Now it takes more time.
(Oh, I also wonder about the rise of 'infinite canvas' tools like Miro / Mural for not needing to print-out and tape-up multi-page documents for editing, etc.)
@clive The biggest reason I print anything anymore, either at work or at home, is because I have to sign a form or contract. Then I scan the signed paper, shred the paper, and email the signed image.
In other words, I use a printer because not everything is converted to DocuSign.
@clive In the year of our lord two thousand two hundred twenty-three, I have again submitted a PDF to a client — all a decade+ younger than me — requesting Acrobat’s commenting tools for revisions. Again, I have received a scan of hand-annotated pages.
I appreciate proofreading on hard copy. Especially since the final will be a print product. And getting proper edits with proper marks (which… they kind of mostly got).
We assume people know how to use the tools they have.
@clive my wife and I owned a sales rep company in the mid 80’s that covered 6 states. The only paper was incoming mail, our output was electronic. What we could not do any other way was accomplished with an early fax modem.
@clive I recently got rid of my two drawer filing cabinet. I discovered that once I threw out things like manuals for toasters I no longer have, there was so little important paper left that it would all fit into a document box with room to spare.
It helps that a few years back I bought a good document scanner. When I get some paper, I generally scan it to OCRed PDF, drop the file into a searchable database, and shred the paper.
For last year's taxes, I found two paper documents I had been mailed (For taxes I keep originals for a few years after scanning). Everything else was PDF to start with.
Long books were the first thing I abandoned paper for. I'd much rather read on an e-ink screen of a waterproof reader than have to deal with an 1,100 page paperback.
@clive I’ll present, without evidence, two other possible contributing factors:
the decline of corporate writing. There are far fewer reports to print now than their were decades ago. Nobody writes anymore! They just make slide decks, which make no sense when printed.
the disappearance of assistants. Printers suck. No one wants to deal with them. It was far easier to get printed materiel when you could have someone do it for you. Now everyone has to do it themselves, and it sucks.
@clive Paper was the only thing keeping my handwriting somewhat legible. I'll have to start keeping a diary or something just so that my writing skills don't atrophy into nonexistence!
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