It's because of the frankly idiotic idea of persistent print queues. If you want to have this artifact that survives a user session, then the print subsystem needs super-user abilities.

ChromeOS does away with the whole idea. There are no persistent printer queues or jobs. Artifacts of the printing subsystem have lifetime tied to the user session.

No, persistent print queues can be implemented without cups running as super-user.

I'm a little confused why this is even an issue. Persistent queues have been an option since the days of Windows 9x.

Maybe it's a Gnome problem. KDE let's me see what I had previously printed if I want to see it, or reprint something.

I also know many people in pre-press who make good use of that.

Windows 9x printing was every bit as bad as CUPS.

The point was about the retention of print jobs in queue, that it was a concept and option since the mid 90s.