yes there are situations where faxes are needed in the USA. As I understand it mostly is in cases regarding legal documents. In the NYTimes article i linked in the previous post though they talk about individuals still buying fax machines and people preferring to fax their lunch orders to a restaurant instead of doing it on a website.
From the article: "The Japanese government’s Cabinet Office said that almost 100 percent of business offices and 45 percent of private homes had a fax machine as of 2011. "
I would be surprised if 10% of private homes in the USA have a fax machine.
Keep in mind the marginal cost of getting a phone-fax instead of a regular phone for home here (Japan) is practically zero.
A fax machine (or a landline for that matter) in the home isn't for me, but they're still moving down the development curve, releasing new features, improving quality and lowering costs.
I have heard on more than one occasion the popularity of the consumer-level fax is tied to the importance placed on skillful handwriting. I have pointed out that there was no way the skillfulness of one's handwriting could be relayed via fax, and noted that there was a certain twisted irony in the fact that a once-new technology remained popular because of something so traditional.
In the last 12 months I have required to use a fax machine about four times here. Twice for a group booking (baseball, riverboat cruise), and twice to send stuff back to my own government in Australia. In all these cases a scanned PDF was confirmed not acceptable.
From the article: "The Japanese government’s Cabinet Office said that almost 100 percent of business offices and 45 percent of private homes had a fax machine as of 2011. "
I would be surprised if 10% of private homes in the USA have a fax machine.