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You can already print to a local FedEx Office and pick it up: https://www.office.fedex.com/default/print-and-go https://www.office.fedex.com/default/print-and-g

You can already print to a local FedEx Office and pick it up: https://www.office.fedex.com/default/print-and-go https://www.office.fedex.com/default/print-and-go I don't think there's enough demand for one-off home prints like this to make it worthwhile for anyone involved. A printer is like $50, or nearly free at the thrift store. Businesses have their own. People borrow friends'. The labor in getting someone to drive that stuff around is going to be way more than printing costs.

dauuit 2y ago
Demand is definitely a pain point for home printers which is why I also considered mobile printers. Printandgo@fedex.com is super convenient, but going there isn't. I was thinking someone doing food delivery could add this to their mix. They'd make $5-$10 to pull up, print, and leave. You get to save some time. Printers are cheap but they collect dust for months before I finally need to use one so I haven't owned one in over a decade. This is feeling like a me problem but I appreciate the feedback.
- solardev 2y ago
  I just don't think (out of the sample of people I've met) there's many people who print infrequently enough that they don't own a printer, but are also lazy and homebound enough that they won't suffer a 15 minute errand to go to a print shop/library/FedEx/work for the one print every three months they do need. I haven't owned a printer for a decade either. My partner prints maybe five or six times a year. Our solution was to just use the HP subscription ink service, which for $1 a month lets us print ten pages (way more than enough) and we never have to worry about cartridges running low or dry. And before that, in college I just picked up a used laser for $20 that paid for itself within a few weeks. Food delivery has both way higher margins and more regularity. People eat out all the time. Not many people print anymore (or we wouldn't be having this discussion to begin with). And the hassle and cost of your proposed solution (humans driving around making one off prints) just don't seem worth it relative to existing solutions. It's a rare enough problem that few people have anymore to begin with, and it's one that's easily solved by anyone who really cares to do something about it. I can't start my own restaurant but I can certainly go and get a printer if I needed one, rather than relying on some unreliable startup that probably wouldn't be able to get enough drivers anyway and just go under in a few months... they already have a lot of apps to juggle between Lyft, Uber, Doordash, Instacart, etc. Plus, I don't think there's many people who are going to want to go through the technical hassle of maintaining a printer and dealing with file types and margins and confused grandmas who really need that print, and oh can you fax it too? Why not, her old printer could... All that time spent for $5 (which they won't get the full cut of anyway), vs just accepting another drop off along the same route (which the existing apps already do)? They make money by squeezing in as many stops as possible within a time, optimized by the app routing, not by spending time waiting for prints to happen...

dauuit 2y ago

Demand is definitely a pain point for home printers which is why I also considered mobile printers. Printandgo@fedex.com is super convenient, but going there isn't. I was thinking someone doing food delivery could add this to their mix. They'd make $5-$10 to pull up, print, and leave. You get to save some time. Printers are cheap but they collect dust for months before I finally need to use one so I haven't owned one in over a decade. This is feeling like a me problem but I appreciate the feedback.

solardev 2y ago
I just don't think (out of the sample of people I've met) there's many people who print infrequently enough that they don't own a printer, but are also lazy and homebound enough that they won't suffer a 15 minute errand to go to a print shop/library/FedEx/work for the one print every three months they do need. I haven't owned a printer for a decade either. My partner prints maybe five or six times a year. Our solution was to just use the HP subscription ink service, which for $1 a month lets us print ten pages (way more than enough) and we never have to worry about cartridges running low or dry. And before that, in college I just picked up a used laser for $20 that paid for itself within a few weeks. Food delivery has both way higher margins and more regularity. People eat out all the time. Not many people print anymore (or we wouldn't be having this discussion to begin with). And the hassle and cost of your proposed solution (humans driving around making one off prints) just don't seem worth it relative to existing solutions. It's a rare enough problem that few people have anymore to begin with, and it's one that's easily solved by anyone who really cares to do something about it. I can't start my own restaurant but I can certainly go and get a printer if I needed one, rather than relying on some unreliable startup that probably wouldn't be able to get enough drivers anyway and just go under in a few months... they already have a lot of apps to juggle between Lyft, Uber, Doordash, Instacart, etc. Plus, I don't think there's many people who are going to want to go through the technical hassle of maintaining a printer and dealing with file types and margins and confused grandmas who really need that print, and oh can you fax it too? Why not, her old printer could... All that time spent for $5 (which they won't get the full cut of anyway), vs just accepting another drop off along the same route (which the existing apps already do)? They make money by squeezing in as many stops as possible within a time, optimized by the app routing, not by spending time waiting for prints to happen...