A cheaper option (if we’re going to do away with the restriction that the post card should be sent by the sender) would be for the recipient to hook their printer up to the network, and just send bits.
It is better, actually, you can even scan a real hand written post card.
It’s not a fax unless it’s from the facsimile region of france. What you’re describing is just sparkling email.
I'm sorry the ink cartel hurt you. May I introduce you to the world of laser printers?
My color laser printer has definitely been cheaper than me driving to the store hundreds of times to print thousands of color prints.
I think it depends. I bought a Dell 1700 laser printer for the low price of $0 at a second hand store about 19 years ago. They said it was failing to pull paper from the tray, and I could have it if I wanted. I fixed the rollers responsible for feeding (turned the rubber wheels inside out), and used it for another 10 years without issue. Sure, toner costs some money, but an off-brand toner cartridge is $25, rated for 3000 pages. I have also needed to replace the drum, and at one point picked up a second 1700 into which I had to put the old drum and toner after some failure or another.
I'd estimate I've put in $200 at most, and probably put 15-20k pages through it. Still prints just fine. It doesn't have color, or networking features, but I can share it on the network from the connected computer. I'm not sure they make anything this reliable these days, but I bet there's quite a few old laser printers floating around still.
When compared to amazon prime, a laser printer can be cheaper than a single year. Add a pile of paper and the printer is cheaper even if it breaks every year and a half.
We could even make a standardised protocol, where anyone could send messages to any connected printer: like letters, except a facsimile of the original document is produced. I'm struggling to think of a catchy name for this, though.