Internationally, there are a lot of people working on laptops and phones cheaper than that. The problem is not the printing - it's the mailing.

I remember the 90s when my family was poor in a middle income country. Mailing internationally was a huge barrier, we didn’t even think about it as an option. It’s 2 dollars now, but still, there are a few 10 or 100 millions people to whom that’s too much. And of course, there is no post service everywhere in the world.

i'm typing this on a 14-year-old laptop my dad gave me because he wasn't using it, because the laptop i bought last year for US$250 broke

I mean I get that. My laptop was a Chromebook I got for $35 on eBay and then a MacBook Air I got for $75. But printing is not out of reach for almost anyone writing. Printing at the library is like 10 cents a page.

that's subsidized but even the unsubsidized cost is maybe 50¢ a page