Company materials are distributed, and if the customer wishes to see a hard copy, it is up to them to provide the paper. An increasing number of technical and user manuals are being distributed this way. Mass production is relatively inexpensive. Most of the cost of producing an electronically published piece is incurred when getting the material ready. But after the master is completed, mass production is extremely cost effective when compared with conventional publishing.
Revisions are cheaper.
Just insert the changes and get the new master produced. If a company has a web site, revisions can be done with little or no extra cost. Reduced postage costs. The cost of sending a few diskettes or a CD through the mail is much less than the cost of mailing bulky catalogs. If a company chooses an on-line presence, postage costs for mailing catalogs drops to almost nothing.