Printing also covers things like exporting to PDF, or rendering in an eBook format (EPUB, Kindle, etc.) for reading the content offline while travelling, etc.

When there is a website that I want to save indefinitely, I will print it to pdf. It means I can go back in a few years after the site is offline or has rearranged its urls (thus breaking bookmarks.)

I mostly do this with order confirmation pages when I order off of random e-commerce sites, and with my bank when I use online bill pay. (And then if someone claims I didn't pay them, I go back through the pdfs and see if I made a mistake.)

More importantly, I "print to pdf" recipes that I want to save. Every year I print out the same turkey recipe, from a pdf, and then I don't need to worry about getting my phone or computer gross by interacting with it while I prep the turkey.

Considering trends in CVEs, printing is only growing importance. Printing has the unique advantage of giving you a record of data that's durable, unhackable, and possible to read without computers. If you print something, you can be confident that it's still going to be the same when you read it later.

Must be horrifying for you to walk into a barnes and noble. Don’t go read up on how bitcoin works or hell nascar. Seems pretty unnecessary that we drive cars around in a circle for countless hours. I will take books and people making physical copies of whatever they want over many other things you would probably pile on your list of wasting resources.

It is. But sometimes it is absolutely necessary for something to be printable, and PDFs are useful. Sensible OSes can generate PDFs from the print dialogue.

Printable does not mean it will be printed, if a page is printable one can assume the creator hasn't fucked with the scroll wheel for example, or forced you to sit through unnecessary animations.

Did they mean specifically printing to paper? Unfortunately the term is overloaded to include exporting to pdf, ePub, etc...

Or do you mean even exporting is a waste of resources?

I agree that unnecessary printing is wasteful. But i would see this just as anecdotal: Having information structured consistently and a easily accessible format. That makes a difference in the long run

I often print things that I do not want but need to read, and go outside with it.

Cuts well on procrastination.

You might be discounting the electricity and battery wear on devices down to zero, and inflating the cost of prints in your mind. Paper is EXTREMELY cheap and efficient.

I personally think the things you enjoy that aren't absolutely necessary are a waste of resources too.

If a tree falls in the woods and there's not a hacker around to complain about it and demand government regulation against it, does it make a sound?