Why a ‘paperless world’ still hasn’t happened

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/29/american-reams-why-the-paperless-world-hasnt-happened

by charlysl • 9 years ago

147 152 9 years ago

charlysl• 9 years ago

TLDR: sales decrease in paper for printing & writing more than being offset by Amazon effect (packaging; food and drink too) & tissue.

unangst• 9 years ago

Analog will always be practical.

vinceguidry4• 9 years ago

It's quite simple. Paper is a near-perfect technology. What replaces it has to be similarly perfect. When people look at what replaces paper, they think screens. Screens are pretty-near perfect too. But screens are not what replace paper. Files are. Screens merely display information, files store it.

And file storage and manipulation is still in the Stone Age. It's about as far from perfect as any technology can be. To kill paper you have to make it perfectly easy for people to design applications without it. Because it's already perfectly easy to design applications and systems that use paper.

We have to fix software development before we can truly kill paper.

shrimp_emoji• 9 years ago

What innovations in file storage and manipulation would characterize a progression to the Bronze Age?

vinceguidry4• 9 years ago

I would say when files become easily storable and accessible. Right now untold amounts of human labor are destroyed whenever the computer systems those humans are using fail. When I think about how most people use computers, I get the distinct feeling like I'm watching an episode of Primitive Technologies.

Systems like Dropbox are a good first step, but the archival of files is still far too complicated. This stuff needs to be easy enough for your 80 year old grandma to master.

I'd say we're probably 20-50 years out. We're eventually going to figure out a basic file format that all applications will use and extend. Then it'll become necessary for all applications to support it. It'll have solved the encoding problem, and it'll have built-in error correction.

Sort of a Unicode for file formats.

Once that's in place, then cloud storage and backup solutions will finally become useful.

cryptoz• 9 years ago

Not the OP, but 98% of the time that someone sends me a .key file for a Mac Keynote presentation, my Keynote application is out of date and cannot open the file. Additionally, it sometimes cannot update either, unless other components are updated, such as the entire OS itself.

A bare minimum requirement for me would be, "a computer can be reasonably expected to open the file". Yes, a computer without the correct application installed could not reasonably be expected to open the file. But here is a computer, perfectly capable of displaying the file, but choosing not to do so. Note that these are not files that are created with the new Keynote that I may not have installed. These are normal Keynote files created in the same version I have - but now my version isn't good enough to open files any more, it would seem.

A piece of paper would never do that.

brendyn• 9 years ago

I'll cut in rudely with my own reply.

Sharing files is unbelievably inconvenient. Sharing files to my mum in the other room involves copying files to a USB drive and moving them manually, after I reformat a USB to ntfs or fat32. It doesn't matter that both of our computers are on a LAN because by default we have no pre-existing convenient ways to share files. With her being on Windows and me being on GNU/Linux, I'm not even sure which program I would pick if I could install one. For anyone that isn't in USB drive proximity, I have to brainstorm a solution every single time I want to share a file for every person I want to give it too. This is all despite the fact that theoretically, there are a million different ways that we could share a file.

BjoernKW2• 9 years ago

While paper used to be the near-perfect technology for storing and distributing non-ephemeral information nowadays this has been turned on its head to the extent that using paper for these purposes has become downright detrimental:

Information stored on paper in some filing cabinet in some office for all practical purposes simply doesn't exist. It can't be easily searched, retrieved or accessed by someone who's not in the same room and doesn't exactly know what he's looking for. In other words: That information is lost.

Old habits unfortunately die hard, which is why people still seem to be thinking that storing non-ephemeral information or knowledge on paper is a good idea.

JumpCrisscross• 9 years ago

It can't be easily searched, retrieved or accessed by someone who's not in the same room and doesn't exactly know what he's looking for

To a lot of people in a lot of scenarios, that is a feature. Modern cryptography has yet to match the ease of use, comfort and security of a single piece of paper locked away somewhere only you would think to look.

vinceguidry4• 9 years ago

Information locked away on some local user's desktop also doesn't exist. If information isn't stored on a dedicated application-specific storage system staffed with people skilled in it's use and repair, then it's the exact same thing.

We can't just take information and dump it on a block storage device. It needs proper archival. This is the same with paper, only if you lose the key to your file cabinet or the drawers stop sliding so easily, you can still get at the information.

If your RAID backplane dies and you don't know how to fix it, you're in for a bad day.

There is a skillset you can learn to work with paper more efficiently. But most people can muddle through without those skills. Not so with digital.

Spooky23• 9 years ago

That’s not true at all. You use one of any number of filing systems.

I worked on a pretty huge paper to electronic record conversion project... millions of pages. We made it much easier to access, although about 25x more expensive, but 95% of searches align with the indexing systems in place for the paper process.

Even in my life, I use a traditional 43 folders system for some things. Very accessible.

gkya2• 9 years ago

Information stored on paper in some filing cabinet in some office for all practical purposes simply doesn't exist. It can't be easily searched, retrieved or accessed by someone who's not in the same room and doesn't exactly know what he's looking for. In other words: That information is lost.

You can't find anything if you don't know what you're looking for, be it through a search box or a pile of drawers filled with paper. A search engine is just a sophisticated index. Information, in any form, is only retrievable once a certain hierarchy is imposed upon it (be it scarce or not) and some sort of index is there (be it in your mind---the invoice is in New Folder (3)---or actually written down somewhere, or somehow generated and operated by a search tool). Yes you certainly can't grep paper (you can try though, there's OCR if one wants to go to those lengths, and that certainly can be useful for lots of tasks, even in the personal scale), but you can't grep your text files if you don't have a search term at hand.

scroot2• 9 years ago

When you read about Kay's Dynabook idea (and get past how the machine mockup looks) you see that he's essentially describing the "computational equivalent" to paper. With such a medium, one could create digital forms as easily as they draw printed forms on paper. And we do not have these types of machines or systems today.

Additionally, there is no better read experience than paper. And consider archiving: digital documents are much harder to preserve than paper documents, and this has enormous implications for public policy, history, and democracy.

pishpash4• 9 years ago

Even as display it sucks. Where's the e-paper that was promised decades ago?

Paper (and pen) have stood the test of time for thousands of years. Warped tech nuts believe they can be replaced by substandard junk electronics. I'm glad consumers aren't so gullible.

wvenable• 9 years ago

Paper isn't perfect. For one thing, it costs a hell of a lot more to store paper than to store digital files; we pay a huge amount to store files offsite. And paper used for ephemeral content is inherently wasteful.

Paper is slowly but surely going away. We just finished digitizing all our employee records; all records from now on will be digital. We used to print reams of reports and store them in filing cabinets, shelves, etc but we don't do that anymore. We aren't paperless but it's been a slow and steady march for decades now.

jdietrich• 9 years ago

Office IT is almost uniformly terrible. I see a lot of companies trying to achieve a paperless office, but very few spending the money it takes to make it a reality.

Paperless workers need two large high-res monitors, not one crappy 21" 1080p monitor or a laptop with a 1366x768 panel. They need at least one tablet with a decent pen interface. They need a good document management system. They need the training and support to make use of it all.

adamsea• 9 years ago

And, to add to what you're saying, paper is infinitely easier for people to interact with. It's a physical, tangible object which they can see, touch/feel, and manipulate just like every other object in the world. The paper we use today is the product of hundreds of years of iterative design - conscious, and otherwise. Plus, of course, paper never runs out of batteries.

I do though believe we eventually will create computers which are as natural for us to use as paper is today.

lisper• 9 years ago

Paper is a near-perfect technology

Paper is far from perfect, but it does have some features that certain business processes have come to rely on which files lack. For example: the ability to physically bind an authorization (a signature) to the information that authorization is associated with by putting both on the same sheet of paper.

Paper also doesn't require batteries. It's much more robust in the face of certain kinds of physical abuse.

But paper takes a lot more space to store, and it's a lot harder to transfer from one place to another.

ashark2• 9 years ago

See also: attempts to replace whiteboards/blackboards.

pavel_lishin• 9 years ago

We bought some Cisco whiteboard thing at work. Great! Collaborative whiteboarding with our team in Austin.

Guess what one fucking feature it didn't have?

That's right! You couldn't just dial another whiteboard on the network and start immediately drawing together with another person.

(Ironically, when I tried to demonstrate this issue to one of our IT folks, the damn smartboard refused to start right up because it needed to install a firmware upgrade - that provided this functionality.)

post_break2• 9 years ago

I just want fax to go away.

tehlike3• 9 years ago

What did you use it for last time?

tyingq2• 9 years ago

It's still in big use in many spaces. Like withdrawal from a 401k, or sales orders from a manufacturer, etc. The hinge seems to be that faxes are exempt from PCI/HIPPA and other privacy regulations.

leipert• 9 years ago

Simple mails are not court admissible in Germany. So if you want to submit something, e.g. a termination of an ISP contract, the best way is a fax.

jseliger• 9 years ago

In healthcare, all the time: https://www.vox.com/health-care/2017/10/30/16228054/american... . Faxes help impede competition and raise provider profits.

post_break2• 9 years ago

A lot of massive companies still use fax to place orders. Supporting it is a nightmare.

tyingq2• 9 years ago

Part of it might be generational. I'm older. Any time I'm in a meeting with a presentation, I print it out and make margin notes while the discussion happens.

This really increases my recall and understanding of what was discussed. I've tried digital equivalents of this and it just doesn't work the same for me.

I have noticed that this type of thing is more prevalent with people in my age group (40+). Writing things down, even if you throw it away right afterwards, seems to increase recall more than typing it.

scroot2• 9 years ago

Writing things down, even if you throw it away right afterwards, seems to increase recall more than typing it.

Your intuition here is spot on and backed up by actual research:

https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-...

brucephillips2• 9 years ago

All else being equal, yes. But the larger benefit of using digital notes like org mode is the ability to apply structure to notes that matches your mental model, thus strengthening your mental model. It's hard to do this with paper without erasing.

whack• 9 years ago

Anyone who thinks the world hasn't gone paperless, really needs to recall how it used to be in the 80s and 90s.

- We don't send physical letters in envelopes anymore, we send emails.

- We don't send documents via fax or courier, we send them digitally.

- We don't apply for jobs by mailing in resumes, we apply online.

- We don't file taxes or other applications using snail mail, we send them online.

- We don't receive statements and invoices in our mailbox, we get them in our inbox.

- We don't send photocopies, we send pictures.

- We don't use checks or even currency notes, we use credit cards.

- We don't read physical newspapers, we read articles online via HN.

- We don't read physical books, we read e-books.

Yes yes, I know people still do some of the above things. But the quantity of paper-use for the above has fallen precipitously, and it's falling even further everyday.

I still use pen-and-paper occasionally to sketch out my thoughts in an unstructured way, and I do like sending letters as a gesture of my extended effort. But for any kind of business dealing or inter-person interaction, paper is on life-support, and is going to be DOA in another decade or two. And everytime I think of paper statements and requests for photocopies to be mailed in, all I can say is good riddance.

lucideer• 9 years ago

paper is on life-support, and is going to be DOA in another decade or two.

I'm not sure what the indicators of this would be, for or against, but extrapolating the current trend to zero seems premature.

I can see paper use continuing it's rapid decline, but I genuinely believe it will plateau at a relatively high level. I think paper will always have it's place, in some fashion.

lgas• 9 years ago

Why do you believe this?

I can't imagine paper being used for things like documents or communication 100 years from now at all. I could imagine it still being used for arts but if there aren't other widespread uses for it then it will probably be rare enough to be pretty expensive for artistic usage.

I'm also not convinced all that many people will even want to use it for artistic purposes when, by then, you'll have things Google's Tilt Brush but with 100 years of advances on top of it.

DonHopkins• 9 years ago

Then at least paper-less, if not paperless.

dabbledash• 9 years ago

Yet I still receive piles of garbage in the mail

TnuoccApmet• 9 years ago

The reason why papyer is here and here to stay - is the frailty that software has shown again and again.

Paper survies the absence of humans, software and devices dont. Operating systems decay, reading software and devices wither away, the revenue stream drys up and soon a whole eco-system decays from a oasis of data back to the dust it came.

We know how frail and vurnerable the whole affair is, deep down. That is why we use ink to sign important contracts, that is why we store copys at seperat places. We would burn them in clay so they outloast us, if we still had a comfortable way to do so.

There is a market for durable softare there, for durable hardware, for the guarantee to withstand times tests. But in the end, it would be a lot- like paper made from sand.

m_mueller• 9 years ago

Alternatively you could step into a time machine, i.e. a flight to Japan (where pretty much your whole list is still standard, just replace paper mail with fax in some cases).

irrational• 9 years ago

We don't play board games anymore, we play video games.

Except... this isn't true. Right now is considered the golden age of board games. Just this past year somewhere between 3000 and 4000 new board games were released. Every one of these use paper in abundance.

ashark2• 9 years ago

Anecdata, but my circle of friends spend about 20x as much time playing board and card (we're just getting into Bridge and... we may not need any other card games now?) games together as we do board games. Probably more like 40-50x if you count pen & paper RPGs. Our digital gaming is all solo stuff. If we play video games together it's almost always local coop, and probably "classic"—something on Gamecube (I assume Double Dash is considered "classic" by now), the Perfect Dark HD update on the XBox360, that kind of thing.

We're technically Millennials (though early ones). I went to my first convention this year (with one other person from same circle of friends) and it was for board games. It was social, it was fun, every single person I met there was awesome. I'll probably go to the same one next year. I'd never go to a video game con, however much I like video games.

mindslight• 9 years ago

Try settling an estate - 7 out of 9 on your list.

pishpash4• 9 years ago

If one's life is at all realistic, the statement that paper will be gone is laughable.

- Sent mail for something requiring physical proof and evidence of delivery like court related correspondence.

- Sent fax to financial institution demanding medallion signature; they have an app but didn't work.

- Not for a job but for applying for credit, had to send in identifying information via mail.

- Any tax situation that is slightly complicated involves forms not available for eFile, guess what, paper forms.

- Still get tax forms in mail, it's a paper trail that won't disappear in 1, 2, 7, or 10 years and then have to pay $25 to retrieve; plus long-term safe, secure storage of readable data is difficult.

- Not sure what the difference is here; photocopiers are scanners.

- Still use checks for rent because landlords don't care to be raped by processor fees.

- Hotel sends paper WSJ and USA Today every day.

- Physical books, especially textbooks, are everywhere since eReaders can't render math worth sh*t; nobody reads anything serious, e.g. academic literature on eReaders, so it's print and mark up.

Paper is far from dead since there is no replacement for some of these things or the replacement is worse or expensive.

PurpleRamen• 9 years ago

For complex ebooks tablets are good to use. Similar for comics, which might be the main reason many students have them in the first place.

uiri• 9 years ago

I'm probably younger than you are - I don't really remember the 80s nor much of anything in the 90s - and I have probably done half of the things on your list on paper within the last year. Some of those are by choice and some are by necessity. This doesn't invalidate your point but I think that you will be surprised in a decade or two just how much stuff is actually still done on paper.

Electronic statements are particularly nasty because the bank might make records older than 24 or 36 months inaccessible and then charge you to retrieve them unless you thought ahead to download your statement PDF each month. Not that that has stopped me from going paperless for day-to-day things but I am rather fond of collecting and filing tax forms on paper.

ttflee• 9 years ago

We email them resumes and they got the attachment printed so that their managers could draw circles and lines on it, with a pen.

mdpopescu3• 9 years ago

Sure, paper is still used for temporary stuff, like taking notes. However, for long-term use I prefer electronic storage - way easier to search. (Almost all my Visual Studio projects, for example, have a "notes.txt" file containing TODOs or general observations.)

closeparen• 9 years ago

Why would anyone e-file their taxes? It's at least $25 for the most basic e-filing software, or 49 cents to drop in the mail.

nickonline• 9 years ago

There are more countries than America.

I do it each year for free.

geomark• 9 years ago

Assuming you are referring to filing taxes in the US, and you live in the US, that may be true. But there are an estimated 9 million US citizens living abroad many of whom probably find it a lot safer and more convenient to file electronically even though it might cost more.

Amezarak• 9 years ago

I have been e-filing state and federal free for years.

nofilter2• 9 years ago

I love how lots of people here assume America is the only land in the world. Most European countries have had online taxing for ages now at a cost of 0.

verall• 9 years ago

Anyone in the US who makes under $64k can e-file for free[0]

https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f...

khedoros12• 9 years ago

It's at least $25 for the most basic e-filing software

False. There are free options.

Having a piece of software do that calculations for me, and even enter most of my information, based on my already-electronic W-2, is worth a good bit of money to me anyhow. Even with software guiding me, I've got to have a couple of hours free to file my taxes.

gozur883• 9 years ago

We don't send documents via fax or courier, we send them digitally.

We still send messages via fax, because a document you sign and send by email isn't a legally signed document, wheras a fax is. I had to print out a PDF, sign it, and and fax it a week ago for this reason.

craigds• 9 years ago

Is that true? In NZ a digital signature is a legal signature. You dont have to print and scan it, just type your name. Legit signed.

nofilter2• 9 years ago

In Estonia, an email is a legally signed document. We also have Digital Signatures via our Electronic IDs. You must live in a third world country, because I haven't even seen a fax machine in the past 15 years.

vadimberman• 9 years ago

Excellent points. It just takes time.

Just like with the "job-stealing automation", despite the hysteria in the press. These things take decades.

stinos2• 9 years ago

A decade or two? Did you think that through? I really, really doubt that is going to happen. Just take books for example: there's a couple of millions of books published & printed yearly. Replacing that and the market and the users within 20-something years? That would require a revolution of some kind. For which there is no significant drive whatsoever.

We don't read physical books, we read e-books.

I do, and really e-ink displays were truly a revelation to me, but it's not a book. Ok I'm one of those people who crave the feeling of well-designed materials/tools/things/whatever and some books fullfill that perfectly in a way no e-book-reader will ever do: a properly bound hardcover weighing over a kg and packed with information on a subject I care about? Gimme! But even for more 'normal' people: I'm wondering how many of those are saying 'I've got an e-book now, haven't read any paper books since'? I know none, but that's just anecdotal of course, they all say 'e-book is nice, but ...'. Not saying that cannot change. But a couple of decades? I'll be extremely surprised. And in any case, I'll still have and use many of the physical books I have now.

mdpopescu3• 9 years ago

My first ebook reader was the Franklin eBookMan [1]. Since I bought that one, back in 200X (don't remember when but it was after 9/11), I stopped reading paper books. I have a few (technical) books I was forced to read on paper, because reading them on a Kindle is a disaster, but I solved that once I got my 10-inch tablet.

My Kindle has 1,029 books on it at the moment... though at least 50% of those are fanfiction, which I prefer to original books.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_eBookMan

Fnoord• 9 years ago

Great post, many good examples, but the elephant in the room is "Yes yes, I know people still do some of the above things." and the question is how much will remain being done.

The babyboomers are on their way out. They're the people born right after WWII and they're in their 50/60/70s. They were born in a world where TV at home was a novelty. They witnessed the smartphone revolution in their late adulthood.

When people who grow up in our current society, with the changes as you put, become adult without the old reference then we will see how important something like pen and pencil remain. And how usable will it be? For example, when I had to scribble down notes the other day, my handwriting was even more abysmal than it used to be because of a lack of practice.

The movie Er Ist Wieder Da (which I saw recently on Netflix) where Hitler returns in Germany in the 21st century and gets confronted with a changed Germany also articulates these changes.

mentos• 9 years ago

If we could snap our fingers and have ultra thin flexible paperwhite lcd sheets how would they be best put to use?

I could see binding 100 of them together that you could 'flash' to create a true e-book

crooked-v• 9 years ago

Star Trek comes to mind for me. PADDs, though (ironically enough) bulkier and clunkier than any real-world tablet device today, are treated as basically disposable. Characters are usually shown with one at a time, but it's implied they can get as many as they want, with a few scenes where a character has five or six PADDs laid out to compare different texts in a physical way despite them (presumably) all accessing the same data source.

cmurf• 9 years ago

I blame the lack of good open source tools for creating and verifying signed PDF (or an alternative format).

Faxes are deeply misunderstood, I still occasionally have vendors and clients say "we need an original" or "we need a signature" or some other brain damaging excuse. And these aren't companies in the sticks that don't know it's 2018, these are large (legacy) companies in big cities.

maxxxxx• 9 years ago

When I look at banks they incentivize you to go back to paper. I signed up for paperless for a while only to realize that they allow you to retrieve online statements only for the last 2 years. If you have a business and need to be ready for an audit, you are better off with paper statements.

TheAceOfHearts• 9 years ago

Paper is high-tech. We tend to look down on certain technologies just because they're older, but paper and paperless both have pros and cons.

There's a chasm of complexity between paper and its alternatives. In addition, we already have tons of experience using paper, along with the knowledge of how it should be handled and preserved.

I suspect that much data will be lost due to bit rot, proprietary formats, legacy adapters, DRM, etc. AFAIK, we're still figuring out how long data can be safely stored in many of these newer mediums.

IMO, it's highly desirable to have both options available. I don't really want everything I do passing through computers over which I have no control.

TipVFL2• 9 years ago

It's kinda funny, I worked for years as an artist and never used paper and then I became a programmer and I'm drowning in paper. I use post-it notes, notebooks, and loose sheets of paper to track progress, work through concepts, sketch layouts, etc...

I'm not sure what it would take to replace that. Working on paper allows me to disconnect from the digital world and concentrate on logic, it also allows me to organize my information physically.

Maybe a very advanced augmented reality system could offer me everything there plus the ability to hang my post-it notes in mid-air. I'd give that a whirl.

Karrot_Kream• 9 years ago

I'm not sure what it would take to replace that. Working on paper allows me to disconnect from the digital world and concentrate on logic, it also allows me to organize my information physically.

How about a device not connected to the internet?

zormino• 9 years ago

I'm similar to the poster you were replying to. I think there are two big reasons I use paper. 1) is that I can very quickly format.my notes however I want, draw diagrams and pictures quickly, there's just no restrictions as opposed to using a text editor or notetaking program. 2) is that when I write things by hand I tend to remember them better, and have an easier time understanding concepts when I sketch them out by hand. I really wish I could replace paper with a suitable program, but so far I haven't found it.

askafriend2• 9 years ago

If you've tried the new iPad Pro with Apple Pencil then you'll have your answer. It's fantastic for sketching and taking notes - the new display eliminates all lag between the stylus and the screen.

It is an expensive solution for sure, but as that kind of technology becomes cheaper, the use case you describe for paper will be reduced as well.

TipVFL2• 9 years ago

It wouldn't really replicate my multiple notebooks scattered precisely across my table, unless I had like 5 ipads. Also, not really a fan of Apple's mobile ux, so it's not the solution for me.

I have managed to get rid of some paper usage by having multiple dry erase boards of various sizes. One digital solution I have considered is something like the boogie board. If you're not familiar, it's basically a 10 inch digital whiteboard that can save the screen to an image and costs around $20. That's cheap enough I could have a pile of them and mostly replicate my current process.

nitwit005• 9 years ago

What a human can manually generate with pen and pencil is usually a fairly trivial.

Look back a few decades and people used to have shelves full of manuals and binders full of product specs. The cubicle designs are totally different now, partly because we don't have all that printed stuff to deal with.

pasbesoin• 9 years ago

As both an interface (including actively functional, not just passive, e.g. mark-up) and a data store, it still has advantages.

Of itself, and in the way we function, cognitively (e.g. spacial orientation).

P.S. Thank god they still haven't managed to make it blink at me. Harry Potter and his animated pictures, be damned! ;-)

robbrown451• 9 years ago

If it were up to me I'd shut down the postal service. Everything I get in the mail could come digitally (such as bills), not at all (freaking junk mail), or via Fed Ex/UPS/Joe's Courier Service (anything someone really, really thinks I need to have physically and wants to pay for).

I hate dealing with paper. I especially hate it when it is redundant. Hate it with a passion.

spondyl• 9 years ago

Could you imagine how much wasted paper comes out of a supermarket in the form of receipts? Most are printed by default then discarded.

I reckon at least 10 garbage bags worth of paper a day at least from one store alone. Maybe I'll run some quick numbers later on.

Paperless in that case would be gold. Just email my receipts so I can archive 'em because I'll only ever need them in the future, not the present.

throw6555• 9 years ago

Majority of paper is used as toilet paper while rest of the paper usage is being slowly replaced by digital means. So stop using toilet paper. Use bidets. Having diarrhoea equals many trees ! As long as there is demand for toilet paper, there won't be a paperless world. Western world will find this difficult to admit this, but any counter arguments are welcome.

t1o5• 9 years ago

Whenever I fill up PDFs for my work visa to the US, I saw paperwork reduction act or something written on the PDFs. I thought it was to reduce paper usage or was it paperwork ?. But in the end, there is always a pile of paper. I would say in the last mile of the process paper is used. I applied for Canadian immigration fully online. But in the end they asked "signed certified photocopies", statements, declarations, consents, affidavits everything in paper with notary's ink seal and sign.

Maybe the laws has to change too. Many laws & processes still needs ink seal and signatures. A digital signature or a digital photo is not enough.

basicplus2• 9 years ago

Why I don't go Paperless..

1. Only My paper bank statements posted to me are correct.

My bank statements printed off from the internet and replacement ones posted out are incorrect.

The interest income earned is only shown on the correct dates on the original paper copies posted out, all the others the interest dates are shown in the incorrect month and thus don't match up what should be shown in my income tax return and don't agree with the interest summary by the bank.

2. Only my original posted Credit card statements are guaranteed correct.

I have had changes made by the bank IN PREVIOUS FINANCIAL YEARS!!!! on the online versions of my statements, such as changes to amounts paid!!!!

Without the original paper copies I could never argue my case.

ArchD• 9 years ago

Paper seems to have greater weight in court than electronic records, so people keep everything on paper in case they need to show documents in court one day.

thaumaturgy• 9 years ago

I'm glad the article mentioned ReMarkable. Mine arrived about a month ago and I love it -- carry it everywhere now. It's done a great job of taking care of my need for scratch paper to jot notes on, and it's really kind of an improvement over keeping track of lots of bits of paper or having a separate notebook.

It's so far the best of both worlds of paper and electronics.

Bit pricey though.

https://remarkable.com/

(I haven't been paid, reimbursed, or otherwise incentivized for this in any way, except that I think it's cool and I want it to be successful.)

kazinator• 9 years ago

A "pay per less" world has happened; each year you pay the same, but get less.

known• 9 years ago

I've noticed eGovernance increases paper usage

cube• 9 years ago

On a side note, I am still looking for a simple solution for paper to archivable, searchable PDFs. The tools coming with my printer/scanner are horrible.

Something without the need to compile a million dependencies and setting up a DBMS.

Ideal process would be: scan to folder, tool runs cleanup and OCR, creates searchable PDF (perhaps with a nice file name) moves to archive folder, done.

Ideas would be more than welcome :)

jansho2• 9 years ago

Now this is a startup that I would totally be evangelist for.

pacifika• 9 years ago

The aim is not to get rid of paper but to use the best tool for the job. So paper still is the best tool but for less and less jobs. We won’t ever need to get rid of paper though.

htkibar• 9 years ago

When new mediums appear, usually they don't get rid of the previous ones but coexist with them. Besides, paper is really good at some things, changing it just because it is more techy is not something valuable to anyone.

mmcnl• 9 years ago

My world has been (near) paperless for almost a decade. Perhaps I'm special?

thisacctforreal• 9 years ago

What do you intend to replace it with? PDFs?

If there's to be a universal "digital paper", it would need a lot of planning and agreement. With the amount of churn of stuff in technology these days I don't see anything stable enough to "replace paper" anytime soon.

Thinking about this problem reminds me of the transition from linotype machines at the New York Times, to fully computerised systems in 1978.

The computer systems are shown at the end of the wonderful documentary 'Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu' https://vimeo.com/127605643#t=24m55s

The amount of thought and preparation put into those systems, and the thought and preparation put into the change from ink-and-metal to pixels-and-bytes seems remarkable. Perhaps the (lack of) co-ordination between hardware and software today is to blame? Many industries have their IT problems handled with software-only solutions, generally with little thought for what the solution will look like 10--or even 5--years down the road.

I would love to hear from people in industries like medical software, and flight software; where thought and preparation is--hopefully--given some budget and priority.

Why a ‘paperless world’ still hasn’t happened

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