It is funny to me that people found this useful, as it defeats the supposed purpose of a signature. A signature is supposed to be a difficult-to-forge indicatio

It is funny to me that people found this useful, as it defeats the supposed purpose of a signature. A signature is supposed to be a difficult-to-forge indication of a particular person having read and approved something - of having been physically present. But with the teleautograph, there is no guarantee - none at all - that you are signing what you think you are! You could even be signing multiple things at once without knowing. What's interesting is that clearly this wasn't a practical problem - implicit social contracts held everything together for the most part. Which means that the guarantee of a signature was never really required in the first place - social contracts would work as well for that too (and for that matter, signatures are not difficult to forge either). The whole thing is just an elaborate ritual!