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Comment by wladimir | Hacker News Reader

Here, paper is still used en-masse to print documents for review meetings.

I agree that is pretty wasteful, especially if you have a lot of revisions of a large document, and many people are present. You print something to throw it away an hour later.

I wouldn't know the cost/benefit analysis though, it might be that the paper-based solution is simply cheaper than giving everyone a laptop. And many people prefer to read on paper (though e-paper would solve this, but that'd be even more expensive).

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The mindset needs to change. The thought process should not be "let's replace paper with laptops or e-readers or iPads so workers can use e-paper". Paper as a concept needs to die. Not replaced with technology, but literally made extinct.

Paper is just a medium for information to exist. The medium doesn't need to be replaced. It should be bypassed. I think it's a habitual crutch workers have, to print information out, for it to be tangible.

I agree that although horribly inefficient, paper is cheap (even with printing expenses), and thus attractive compared to buying everyone an iPad. That's unfortunate because I believe it handicaps workers by acting as an unnecessary bottleneck when it should be completely removed from the information workflow wherever possible.

As the founder and CEO of http://73primenumbers.com I couldn't disagree more. Here are some advantages of our time-tested Paper and Pencil application suite:

http://73primenumbers.com/pencilpaper.html

Cheap, Reliable, Safe, extremely Portable, 0-minute Installation, compatible with anything, built in Internationalization.

I had to read for a while before I realized that there was no product. I kept thinking "What is this guy actually selling?" Great site :-D

Yes it's cheap, even with printing expenses. But what if you factor in employee time over all employees?

- walking to the printer, then waiting (sometimes in line) for the document to be printed

- discovering that the document did not print and mysteriously disappeared in the print queue, walking back to seat, and send new print request, then go back to printer

- walking to a different floor when the printer is broken or stuck (happens quite a lot with busyly-used printers)

- if you find that something is wrong with the document, you can start the process over again

OK, most of these are merely annoyances that don't cost a lot of time. But you wouldn't hear me complain if all paper and printers were forbidden and removed :)

That's not how they got rid of telegraphs. Something(s) tangibly better came along and telegraphs faded away. Paper will die when people stop using it not when someone tells them to.

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