I don't think it was a promise, more like a prediction. And it is becoming true, I think. At least in my line of work (engineering, software, telecoms, security

I don't think it was a promise, more like a prediction. And it is becoming true, I think. At least in my line of work (engineering, software, telecoms, security) shuffling papers has decreased a lot over the past 15 years. National legislation sometimes slows this development, e.g. by insisting on having a paper with a signature and possibly even a stamp. As usual, we tend to overestimate how quickly the changed happens in short-term (hence "the broken promise"), but we also underestimate the social impact this change has (we don't just replace paper with electronic forms, we change the way we work and it changes businesses profoundly.)