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Because most businesses/governments are solidly stuck in the "sheet of paper" paradigm, and PDF provides a way to "make electronic" all those sheets of paper.

And once the old paper based process has been "made electronic" by using PDF's, they don't bother with trying to continue past a "sheet of paper" metaphor.

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Those sheets of paper have a really long history and humans have evolved it to be just the right size ... to handle and hold. And ergonomically two columns on a sheet of A4 (whatever by 11 in) is a pretty good default for the human visual system.

And ... printers work pretty well with it and while even I have to admit that digital documents are superior for most documents, paper still has a lot going for it: underlining, flipping back and forth, taking notes in the margins. I also find the added spatial dimension sometimes helps me remember (e.g. that was up on the top left of the page next to a chart) ...

The physicality of paper makes it substantially easier for my brain to map and relate content on the page. Each time a digital scroll or zoom is involved, my mental state machine experiences some corruption.

Wonder if there are any IDE's for book reading...

Paper is useful for the individual but using it in an organization context certainly causes problems.

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