I am neither. I am closer to republican philosophy, because I want to do things without asking permission to do them.
Both democratic and republican ideas eroded in the United States. There are good and bad things on either side.
Democratic ideas are now very close to 'Parasitic Lawyer-Infested Socialism' .
Republican ideas became somewhat isolationist. I do not think they will work very well, as US is losing its technology power.
As HW (a Swede) told me: Americans reduce the quality of beers, till it is barely can be called a beer.
This is true and applies to many other things, not only to the beer. Spend money on advertisement and promotions, reduce the material and labor cost. Move manufacturing oversees, where the cost to manufacture is small. Then, sell the product very cheap. The profit margin may be small, 10-20%, but the huge money can be made by increasing the sale volume.
As a result of this philosophy, American bear quality of major brands (Budweiser, Coors, etc) became very bad. To counterbalance this, home brewing and microbrews have started first in Pacific Northwest and then in California. Americans finally learned that the beer can have a taste and variety. We have gotten IPAs and American Pale Ales, Brown Ales, Stouts, Porters, etc. We have gotten variations on the Belgian Beer theme. By 2020s, they went mainstream and the same philosophy followed: reduce the quality of IPA, reduce the cost, increase the volume. I am currently drinking Boatswain IPA made in Michigan; it is terrible.
So, this is the American curse, I guess.
I have four printers total: two laser printers and two inkjet printers.
HP Color Laserjet All-in-One: HP MFP281
HP Laserjet Pro M203 (monochrome)
Canon Pro-100 A3+ size visual art and photo printer
HP Designjet 130 A2 size (visual arts and photo)
The first 2 printers were made in Vietnam and possibly in China. Their wireless link does not work (never has worked), as it was in conflict with the wireless modem. They have a green light, constantly blinking day and night. I print using ethernet and USB cables; those connections work fine. Overall they work well; I have no complaints as the wireless option is not important for me.
Designjet 130 is truly not supported by HP. The drivers are not updated, the ink supplies are not being sold etc. It is a nightmare to keep it alive, but not impossible.
Canon Pixma Pro-100 is an excellent printer and is fully functional.
So, why am I writing about it? For many years, the printers were always on as I was printing something every day. The blinking green light bothered us and we were covering it at night. In July of 2025 I realized that I can turn them off, as I print very rarely now. Now I have all of them off by default. Here we go. This is the milestone.
The year of 2000; inkjet and laser printers are everywhere. Everybody printed. Let's discuss what was printed at home. In 2000, it was:
student work (schools and colleges)
formal letters
photos
legal documents (contracts etc.)
driving directions
instructions and manuals
books and brochures
Fast forward to 2020s- most of it is gone. Everything is now sitting on the phones, on computers, or, often on the cloud/internet.
The digital/digitized content so much better; tit is searchable, archivable, interactive, and often editable. And it is always with you, in your pocket, on your phone!
Some examples from my life.
1. Photos. In 2000s, I was so much into photo printing. Whatever I made photographs of, I wanted to print out! The photos ended up in huge folders sitting on my bookshelf. I never really opened those folders. They ended in recycling bin not so much later. In about 2005, I started to go the other way; all my hard copy prints that did not have their digital copies were scanned and digitized. I have to say, I browse my digital files more often than the hard copy files. In 2025, my photos are either on my phone (always with me) or on the cloud (website, blogs). They also sit on my mainframe hard drive as a backup.
2. Books. We have a good library of actual physical hard copy books that sits on our shelves. It includes for example a wonderful Encyclopedia Britannica. I use it very little. I mostly use my Amazon Kindle account where I have about 100 or so books stored. I switched to digital books in about 2010.
3. Legal documents (real estate, rental contracts). All of them are still mostly hard copies. However, when we were buying a summer house, all the initial real estate transactions were virtual via DocuSign. One of my rentals is handled via DocuSign, the other is still a hard copy. The transition has happened at about 2020.
4. Driving directions. There was a time when I was printing my driving directions, (or was using a Garmin Navigator). in about 2010, Garmin Navigators became bad (not sure why). In the same time, the phones became much better. From 2015 on, I am using only IPhones for my navigation, and I also stopped printing.
5. Hiking Maps. I used to print my maps; now it is on AllTrails on my phone.
6. Homework and teaching assignments. I was briefly teaching at USD, in 2020-2021. There were multiple online platforms there to give assignments and to grade them; one of them was called BlackBoard. The students posted their assignments online. There was essentially no printing involved. This is quite different from the time when my children were in schools and colleges (2000-2010). Then, essentially every assignment needed to be printed.
7. Quick notes for yourself/scribbles. I use Iphone features such as quick video or photos. For example, if I need to get a schedule of a swimming pool, and it is not posted online, I just snap a photo. When I repair something, and it needs to be disassembled, I make photos and videos in the process.
