On several of my previous projects I've been tasked with making the print broken, not just "disabled", to try and force people into the "happy path" where there's a download button. Despite the beforeprint event that would let me trigger the same process.

(I've argued and lost that fight, more often than won it.)

In these fights, did they give the justification for the download button? I'm continuously frustrated by these types of things that go out of their way to break native functionality. Is there a way where they can get extra information and tracking on the user; is that the goal?

To me the "happy path" is the one the user would naturally take, without needing to learn the quirks of each site.