Whether processing payments in retail or printing kitchen tickets in restaurants, users expect every interaction to work instantly and consistently.
When developing a cloud-based POS solution for one of our partners, we chose ESC/POS to support receipt printing across different printer manufacturers. The protocol provided a strong foundation, but integrating real-world hardware proved more complex than the documentation suggested.
The ESC/POS specification solves only part of the problem. Delivering a printing experience that users can actually rely on means accounting for the inconsistencies, edge cases, and vendor-specific behaviour that only emerge in production.