JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS INEVITABLE DOESN'T MEAN IT HAPPENS AT THE PACE YOU DEMAND:

Paper it seemed, had attained some sort of spiritual-mythical ineffability that would forever elude the grasp of rude digital technology.

Except that in the last 10 years, very quietly, paper has actually started on what promises to be a long decline.

Turns out the stuff isn't as ineffable as we thought. It's just that paper isn't so much a single technology as a foundation for all of modern economic and cultural life. It is simply taking time to swap the stuff out. In the process, we are realizing that there isn't just one replacement for paper. There are many.  The Kindle and other e-ink readers for books, tablets for general reading and tablets with styluses for sketching, handwritten note-taking and doodling (I have fallen in love with my stylus; it has increased my use of my iPad tenfold). On the more bureaucratic end, we have APIs for structured data transfer, systems like ACH and modern electronic invoicing for finance. Even the dragon of electronic medical records seems like it will be slayed soon. Signage may be doomed once technologies like OLED wallpaper go mainstream. Smartphones and QR codes are slowly killing ticketing.

To use Sellen/Harper language, not all affordances matter in all situations, and paper is being killed in different domains by partial substitutes that replicate the key affordances for that domain, and add enough value on top that the switch is a no-brainer. Sure, you cannot scribble on paperless bank statements, but that's not an affordance you actually want in that situation. Sure, you cannot (yet) fold a tablet into a post-card sized object and shove it into your pocket, but for quick scribbling or coupons, the smartphone isalready pocket sized.

There are a few straggling applications that are yet to be conquered (paper receipts, the bane of business book-keeping is a big one, as is the ever-elusive digital-signature world), but they will succumb within the decade as the electronic payments problem is finally solved.

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