“embedded in many workflows”
Key statement right there.
And once people see what that really means, and what it would take to move past it (including time, cost, and risk), they may start to understand. You’re dealing with it first hand, so you know what’s involved.
It became the de facto way to send stuff with high confidence it went to the right place. Then tech addressed the paper-to-paper over one phone line issue with modem banks into a fax server. So all the same fundamental comm tech (so fully backwards-compatible), but a better solution for the company with that infrastructure. Such a company has little motivation to completely change to something new, since they’d have to retain this for anyone that hasn’t switched. Chicken-and-egg problem, that’s slowly moving forward.
It’ll be a long time before it’s gone completely. Perhaps in 20 years, but I suspect fax will still be around as a fallback/compatibility.
Well before.
And “refuse to change their ways” - are you going to underwrite the project to implement a transition and hold all the liability for the risks?
Its not like changing systems is just a click of a button, this is an extensive project, that you better get right or you’re dealing with records going the wrong way, potentially having serious life and safety implications.
Plus, you have to maintain this legacy fax system because not everyone else has migrated to something new. So for the remainder of your career, it still doesn’t go away, and you’ll have to continue to pay for its maintenance.
Companies have systems they’ve built up over years, that works. They’ll move forward as it makes fiscal sense.