It feels like there’s an app for absolutely everything these days, and our smartphones can handle tasks we never thought possible. This digital revolution has led many to question the necessity of traditional home office equipment, including the once-ubiquitous printer and scanner combo.
Like Katherine from TreeHugger, I also found myself printer-less not by choice, but by tech obsolescence. My Samsung all-in-one printer, scanner, and fax machine became a paperweight when Apple’s Catalina update dropped support for 32-bit drivers. Samsung, having exited the printer business and handed software support to HP, offered a wireless workaround that I never bothered to implement. Why? Because, honestly, I hadn’t actually needed to print anything since the old machine stopped working.
My primary reason for owning that Samsung was its flatbed scanner, but also because it was an affordable laser printer, a choice made after a frustrating and costly experience with an Epson inkjet. The inkjet’s ink cartridges would dry up from infrequent use, a common problem that highlights another pain point: ink costs. Consumer Reports has famously pointed out the absurd expense of printer ink, noting that even the cheapest cartridges can cost more per ounce than Dom Pérignon champagne, and the priciest options make gasoline look like a steal. Their research also revealed that some printers waste a significant amount of ink simply cleaning print heads, potentially costing users over $100 annually in wasted ink.
HP’s attempt to transform ink into a subscription service further complicates things. Their monthly plans, while seemingly convenient, come with their own set of issues. As noted by Josh from How-To Geek, HP’s ink subscriptions include DRM, meaning your cartridges can stop working if you miss a payment. Furthermore, these plans often charge per page, regardless of ink coverage, making them potentially expensive for users who print color-heavy documents or even just single words on a page. The idea of DRM-protected ink cartridges that become useless if you don’t pay your subscription is a major deterrent for many.
Exploring Alternatives to Owning a Printer
So, if a Home Printer Scanner is becoming less essential and potentially costly, what are the alternatives?
- Public Libraries and Local Print Shops: As Katherine mentioned, public libraries offer printing services, a convenient option for occasional needs. I’m fortunate to have a local computer store that provides printing for a nominal fee per page. These pay-per-print services eliminate the upfront cost and maintenance hassle of owning a printer.
- School and University Resources: Students often have access to printers at their schools or universities, making personal home printers less necessary for academic tasks.
- The Kindness of Friends (and Email): Need to print something occasionally? Emailing a PDF to a friend with a printer and offering cookies in return can be a pleasant and social solution.
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Digitally signing documents on a Mac using the Preview application, offering a paperless alternative for document signing.
Katherine’s recent experience of needing to print, sign, scan, and return a PDF document, which took two days involving a trip to her husband’s workplace, highlights the inefficiency of paper-based workflows in the digital age. The good news is that digitally signing PDFs is now incredibly simple. Both Mac (using Preview) and PC (using Adobe Reader) offer built-in tools to electronically sign documents. You can easily create a digital signature from a scanned image of your handwritten signature, insert it into the document, save, and send it back—all without printing a single page.
For tasks like tickets and boarding passes, which were once printer staples, digital alternatives have become the norm. Mobile ticketing and digital boarding passes displayed on smartphones are widely accepted, further reducing the need for home printing.
Scanning Solutions: Mobile Apps to the Rescue
What about scanning? While flatbed scanners were once essential for digitizing documents, mobile scanning apps have emerged as powerful and convenient replacements.
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Employing the Scanbot application on a mobile device for efficient document scanning and cloud storage management.
For years, I’ve relied on the Scanbot app for scanning documents. It delivers excellent results, allowing you to save scans to the cloud, local files, or share them instantly. Scanbot even includes features for opening, signing, and resending documents, making it a versatile tool for digital document management.
While Scanbot has transitioned to a subscription model, and user reactions have been mixed, numerous other scanning apps are available. Exploring these alternatives can reveal cost-effective and feature-rich mobile scanning solutions.
Faxing? A Relic of the Past
Faxing? In today’s digital landscape, the concept of faxing seems almost archaic. Email and secure file sharing services have largely replaced fax machines for document transmission.
The Paperless Trend: Are We Finally There?
Looking back at a New York Times illustration from over a decade ago depicting a “paperless home” – filled with scanners, cameras, and external hard drives – it seems almost comically outdated. Today, our smartphones can handle all those tasks and more. The need for a dedicated scanner has significantly diminished, and with bills increasingly arriving via email, the demand for home printers is also waning.
Unless I can resurrect my old Samsung printer scanner from its driver-induced slumber, I’m unlikely to replace it. The digital alternatives for printing and scanning are simply too convenient and cost-effective to ignore. Before investing in a new home printer scanner, it’s worth considering whether your needs can be met by the array of digital tools readily available at your fingertips.
