Printing is cheap and, even with a half-decent consumer-grade inkjet or laser printer, takes very little labor. Laminating is much more labor-intensive, though it's not bad as long as you stick to a standard paper size[0].

In my experience, somehow, in the transition to digital and past worries about "dead trees", most people missed the fact that paper and printing are dirt-cheap these days[1], and if you account for e-waste, often much more environment-friendly than digital alternatives.

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[0] - We bought a laminating machine recently, so my wife could make various educational tools for our kids herself. It quickly stops being fun once you're trying to laminate a bunch of arbitrarily-cut shapes on a single shit; keeping things aligned is a PITA.

[1] - Well, not if you're paying a print shop. I think that biases the intuition for many. Even color printing is too cheap to meter if you have a half-decent printer at home.

I've been to restaurants with home printed laminated menus. It cheapens the entire experience, to an incredible degree.

The inks fade very quickly, the lamination job feels like, well, a elementary school art project, and there is no way a nicer upscale establishment is doing this. (And with food prices being what they are, almost everyplace now days is a "nicer" place!)

Meanwhile there is a damn good reason that the fancy expensive cocktails at get their own full color advert at every table! Making food look good, with high quality design and printing, makes the food look more desirable.

Yeah, fancy restaurants will often use non-laminated paper menus that I assume they have to reprint frequently.

Really fancy restaurants update the menu frequently as well, at least seasonally if not more often. Sometimes they leave a version number or revision date at the bottom!