My Revenge

[Weltall]

Sure, but how many people have access to such a machine? For some, it may not even be a feasible or realistic goal to have one. Everybody still has fax machines, and they're crucial for many small businesses. Just because better (or should I say different or newer) technology exists doesn't mean that other technology is obsolete.

Everybody who has access to a computer scanner has access to the technology. There are many free optical character recognition programs that will handle basic text documents, and the most advanced OCR options (which can handle more advanced conversions, from things like handwritten documents) I've seen are around US $500--hardly a tremendous investment for an individual who really wants it, and beans for any small business.

Compare that to the expense of operating a fax machine, including the need to pay for a phone line, and the limited number of recipients (as they also require a machine), and the fact that faxing is basically good only for communication, whereas a scanner can be used for other purposes, and I can't imagine anyone consciously choosing fax over scanning for any reason other than unfamiliarity with scanning technology.