It might not be essential, but you could also suggest that novelists go back
to typewriters, accountants use slide-rules and we all go back to reading a
paper map instead of using a GPS. Well not much wrong with the last
suggestion but the point is PRODUCTIVITY.
Photographing each step of an art tutorial is laborious, and if I make a
mistake, I have to start over from the beginning. With good digital art, I
can 'undo', and simply 'save' as I go instead of having to photograph or scan
and tweak each one. Admittedly at the moment I mostly use analogue pencil
anyway and just tidy up in Gimp but sometimes I like to use a lot of digital
media. It's not play, it's work. I get paid little enough as it is. Anything
that makes my work more efficient is a good thing. Good software really is a
critical tool for my work, as is my Wacom tablet. It's not a Cintiq, my
budget isn't that big.
Yes they still make books, but when you're talking about printing dozens of
academic papers out every week, that's a lot of trees. Try organizing all of
those too. It's redundant effort when I can find them with a click or two in
my bibliographic software.
In both of these cases a good tablet would be a huge boon to productivity.
But you go ahead and regard them as toys if it makes you happy.
