[solatic]

For me, paper receipts are a quick and simple way to verify on-the-spot that the retailer hasn't screwed up the billing. If you're at the supermarket and everything is scanned by barcode, then everything's probably OK. If you're at a random mom-and-pop shop where product numbers and prices are entered into the POS by hand, well, cashiers are human beings, and we all make mistakes sometimes.

It would be nice if I could get an instant notification on my phone whenever my card is charged, itemizing the exact charges being added to my account, but today, that's a pipe-dream. Even then, paper receipts might be better because they keep that higher resolution of purchasing behavior private from my bank.

I'd agree that it would be a waste if I didn't get some kind of value from it. But I do. Whether society in aggregate gets enough of a benefit from it and whether more ecologically-friendly solutions are worth developing is a different question.