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Reluctant though I am, I must agree with you that movement in the general direction of a paperless office has been slow. In fact, it seems that instead of paper becoming less a part of the office environment, people are simply getting better and better printers and copiers to help them deal with it. However, I also think that paper is going to beome less and less of an issue in real life. What with all the e-wallet solutions out there today, it is only a matter of time until people figure out that paper is not necessary to make a transaction using a credit card. The reason I hope for this to be the starting point is because this will likely provide the monetary stimulus and the critical mass necessary to drive lots of development.
From a movement like electronic payment, I think paperless news will become more and more common. Subscription services will be a bitter pill to swallow for some, but I would be willing to pay the same for an electronic subscription to my local newspaper as I would for a paper one, if only to avoid having all that paper to put in my recycle bin each week. Loading the whole paper might be a space hog, but that's what memory cards are for. Imagine, the whole newspaper, in an electronic, searchable, archivable format. Now, that would be a history student's dream.
Scott
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