I don't. CUPS does not harm (it's lightweight and quiet), and I don't want to have to install it or configure it if I ever need to use a printer. Drivers should be installed automatically too, so I don't have to think about it. I install whatever mainstream distro, connect to whatever printer there is at the place I am with my laptop and it should just work. People have other things to do than (finding out how to) configure a printer and install packages for that.
Distros cannot assume people will know in advance what printer they will need to use with a laptop. For a desktop computer, it's slightly different, but still, common things just need to work out of the box, life is too short for fiddling for most people (I like fiddling though, but only when I choose to do it).
On less mainstream / more KISS distros, it would be okay (better) not to install CUPS by default though.
So you walk 1 minute to the convenience store, spend a minute fiddling with the plug, another few trying to go through the menu. Finally get your print, and walk a minute back. Say it takes 10 minutes total.
Meanwhile I just press print and in less than 10s my printout is on my desk.
I can see why some people don’t need a printer, but I need one often enough that walking to the conbini and doing that dance is a major PITA.
Personally nearest convenience store is not near so I have an inkjet printer.
Yep. Even if you need to own a printer, lots of modern printers for office or home also offer those options. For 99% of the cases it's just as good as printing from the computer.
This is how it should be, IMO. CUPS is ok, but I would rather never have to install any software related to HP, Epson or Canon on my machine, let alone a driver.
In any case I uninstall CUPS when I install a new installation of linux because, at least in the past, I'd see tons of files updated all the time every update all related to cups, something I wasn't using at all.