Desktop printers will have the same demise as cable tv and landline phones: quality will continue to go down and prices up as providers squeeze any remaining profits out of the business.
Landline phone-call quality has always been and continues to be infinitely better than anything people are using today to replace it.
I can't believe that in 2021 people aren't actively revolting over how useless smartphones are at actually doing phone duties.
Even if I get a "land line", it's just an expensive VOIP line from my ISP.
Even if we assume you've got a real landline, it's most likely that your call will transit over IP anyway at some point unless you're calling your neighbor who's on the same phone exchange.
The reason for the perceived higher quality is most likely because it all goes over stable wired networks and not due to the analog nature of the landline, and so can be replicated with a SIP deskphone, computer or even smartphone as long as your network is stable (most consumer-grade network gear is crap and most Wi-Fi connections often operate in a degraded mode that appears "fine" for browsing but fails for interactive latency-sensitive tasks such as calls).
I’ll also add that the iPhone in particular makes me so angry sometimes. I’ll have a phone number plain as friggin day on the screen - in an email or a web page - and there is _no way_ to call it by just tapping it. Oh no, you have to hold down, hope you highlight at the right point, drag to select the number, then switch to the dialer, hunt around for the hidden “paste” location, and then hit dial!!! Omg it frustrates me to no end.
Oh and speaking of frustrating, you can’t beat the catharsis you feel after slamming down the receiver after a particularly frustrating call
The toner cartridges last 8-10k pages and if you purchase at least one a year (easy enough to do) they extend your next day onsite parts and labour support contract.
I got an amazing deal on it as well - but not the typical $80 "make a loss on the printer and make it back on ink" that consumer models adhere to.
The printer at work, which is free and convenient if you work in an office.
Or the one at the local copy shop, which is 10c a page. I probably spend ~$1/year printing out forms, there aren’t that many left…
For the rare cases you need something printed you can use a dedicated print store / office store with printing or the local library. There is no need for the average person to need a printer anymore.
Here paper is king still, and its usage is going up (compared to the rest of the Europe). You need to deal with some bureaucracy's? Register on their internet site, they'll send you an OTP in mail. You might be able to do some things online, most of the stuff are tight letters sent to your mailbox.
Even better, some offices still require you to use a fax machine. Good luck, if you're 20something and never used one. I'm almost in my 40s and 2019 was the first time in my life I needed a fax, in Germany.
And I highly doubt the usage of paper will go down in anytime soon here...