The cognitive overhead of sketching a diagram or jotting a todo is hard to beat.
I'd love to have a setup like this. I would probably let small objects pile up on its surface though, which would make it hard to turn.
I'd love to have a setup like this. I would probably let small objects pile up on its surface though, which would make it hard to turn.
That does seem like the biggest problem with this idea. The entire surface doesn't have to be writeable, though. You could cover part of (most of?) the desk with a second surface, fixed around the front and back, that would remain stationary as the paper moves.
A nice compromise would be to use butcher-paper that's less wide than your desk is deep, leaving perhaps the back third of the desk uncovered. That way, you can put your various permanent pieces of desk furniture --- pen-pots, charger cables, paper trays, whatever else --- at the back of your desk and still have the front two-thirds as a rolling writing surface.
That also probably makes it easier to use 100% of the depth of the writing surface, because reaching right to the back of the desk isn't really practical. A relatively standard UK desk is about 800mm, or ~32", deep, so having the back 300mm/~11" uncovered would work out pretty well.
Edit: Just realised that this comment describes a solution that's functionally equivalent to panic's comment one level above[0], though does vary a little in the method of implementation.