Much to my surprise, a random check of a US-based office supply company shows that they do have A4 in stock -- at a price about 40% higher than letter-sized.
Hacker News users may be familiar with Julia Evans (http://jvns.ca) who creates technology zines that work in both A4 and Letter sizes, folded in half.
This one surprised me quite a bit. I think most people have A4/letter-sized folders. Why does anyone think that papers slightly longer than those folders are a good idea?
Legal folders can be great to be able to print letter-sized things on, then you have an area at the bottom to write notes and stuff.
Sure. But I didn't know I use legal size paper or even what it is before I asked the apartment complex to print the lease agreement, and it didn't fit in their own folder with the other move in papers. In my rank of weirdness discovered upon moving to the US, this is at about the same level as the different ounces.
Why are two slightly different standards needed? Does legal really need to print "just a little bit more" text than others? If so, why not just use that one for everything?