Why Fax Is Still Here. And Why That’s Not a Problem. 

Every so often, someone will confidently declare that “fax is outdated” or that “we just haven’t made better alternatives easy enough.” These takes get traction because they sound reasonable. But they miss the mark entirely.

The truth is that fax persists across industries not because people are slow to adapt, but because it continues to solve problems that other tools simply don’t.

Fax Isn’t a Relic. It’s Infrastructure

From healthcare to government, legal, finance, and insurance, fax remains embedded in daily operations. Not out of habit, but out of necessity. Fax is:

• Ubiquitous – Every organization can send and receive a fax. You don’t need to worry about what platform someone else uses.
• Interoperable by design – Fax rides on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a global, connection-oriented protocol that provides proof of transmission and delivery—something email, messaging apps, and APIs can’t guarantee natively.
• Legally recognized – Courts accept fax as a legally binding transmission method because of that connection-oriented protocol. It’s auditable, timestamped, and verifiable in a way that’s trusted worldwide.

If Fax Were Easy to Replace, It Would Be Gone

The idea that we’re clinging to fax because we just haven’t found “something better” is a misunderstanding of the landscape. Alternatives haven’t failed because they weren’t good enough. They’ve failed because they weren’t comprehensive enough:

• They don’t talk to every system.
• They don’t work out-of-the-box across organizations.
• They break when infrastructure goes down.
• They introduce complexity and require training.
• They shift liability without offering reliable fallback.

Many organizations have wasted time and money chasing “fax replacements” that ultimately led to more friction, more silos, and no reduction in actual risk.

Fax Is Still Evolving

Modern cloud fax systems aren’t your dad’s thermal-paper machine. They:

• Integrate with EHRs, CRMs, and line-of-business apps.
• Offer secure transmission with full audit trails.
• Support API and automation workflows.
• Route documents based on metadata, users, or queue logic.
• Comply with HIPAA, CJIS, FINRA, and other security frameworks.

Fax has evolved in step with the needs of modern organizations. It just hasn’t abandoned the universal protocol that makes it work. 

Beware of Oversimplification

When someone insists that fax should be gone by now, they’re often:

• Selling a solution that only works in part of the problem space.
• Ignoring regulatory and legal realities.
• Underestimating the complexity of real-world workflows.
• Overlooking inter-organizational communication needs.

Smart organizations don’t chase trends. They build resilient, flexible systems that meet people where they are. Fax remains part of that fabric.

Replace It When You’re Ready, Not Just Because Someone Said So

Fax will eventually fade, but only when something comes along that is:

• Just as universal
• Just as interoperable
• Just as trusted in legal and compliance contexts
• And just as easy to support across disconnected systems

Until then, don’t fall for technology takes that confuse simplicity with substance. Learn more from our Kelley Create Cloud Fax experts today. We can help.

Written by Chris Heckert, Technology Strategy Director and Cloud Fax Expert