The advantages are all minor—mostly it's an aesthetic preference rather than a practical one. But there are a few small things:
- The mechanism of a fountain pen relies on capillary action and gravity rather than the mechanical rolling action of a ballpoint. This means you don't have to press the point down into the paper almost at all in order to write. This reduces writing fatigue, and can even make writing possible for folks with carpal tunnel or other sources of wrist pain (like healing wrist fractures or other issues).
- Cursive was developed before ballpoints were common. This means that there's a bunch of subtle ways that most western cursive systems are optimized for the low-friction, gliding style of writing with a fixed tip and liquid ink rather than the constant pressure style of writing needed for ballpoints. It's actually less work and strain with a ballpoint NOT to join all your letters together. With a pen that uses liquid ink, it suddenly makes sense why not picking the point up from the page saves effort.
- Fountain pens (can) use less disposable plastic than ballpoints, especially if you're a heavy journaler. A glass bottle of liquid ink will last months or years and there's no plastic inserts or disposable tips to be thrown away. So if you care about that sort of thing, a little bit less waste is an objective advantage.
- Bottles of ink are cheaper per page written than most ballpoint refills. But, this is an invisible benefit to most because depending on how far you get into the hobby you'll inevitably end up spending much more on pens and paper than you would've ever spent on ballpoint refills.
- The ink choices are way more diverse and interesting with fountain pens than with ballpoints. There's many color options available, and some inks have special properties, like drying with fun reflective spots wherever the ink pools or containing microscopic glitter particles to make your writing sparkly.
- Fountain pens, depending on the specific design, are better suited for certain styles of calligraphy than most ballpoint pens are.
But most people who get into fountain pens and ink do so because of aesthetics, not anything objectively superior.
Generally agreed on all points, they're pens that feel good to write with and have little aesthetic joys to them that make writing more enjoyable. I like unscrewing the top of a pen. It's a little spark of joy. But it's mostly aesthetic and is likely fairly subjective.
> It's actually less work and strain with a ballpoint NOT to join all your letters together.
This to me is the biggest observable, practical difference that comes out of the capillary system of the pen. Anecdotally, my handwriting improved quite a bit when I started using a fountain pen.
- The mechanism of a fountain pen relies on capillary action and gravity rather than the mechanical rolling action of a ballpoint. This means you don't have to press the point down into the paper almost at all in order to write. This reduces writing fatigue, and can even make writing possible for folks with carpal tunnel or other sources of wrist pain (like healing wrist fractures or other issues).
- Cursive was developed before ballpoints were common. This means that there's a bunch of subtle ways that most western cursive systems are optimized for the low-friction, gliding style of writing with a fixed tip and liquid ink rather than the constant pressure style of writing needed for ballpoints. It's actually less work and strain with a ballpoint NOT to join all your letters together. With a pen that uses liquid ink, it suddenly makes sense why not picking the point up from the page saves effort.
- Fountain pens (can) use less disposable plastic than ballpoints, especially if you're a heavy journaler. A glass bottle of liquid ink will last months or years and there's no plastic inserts or disposable tips to be thrown away. So if you care about that sort of thing, a little bit less waste is an objective advantage.
- Bottles of ink are cheaper per page written than most ballpoint refills. But, this is an invisible benefit to most because depending on how far you get into the hobby you'll inevitably end up spending much more on pens and paper than you would've ever spent on ballpoint refills.
- The ink choices are way more diverse and interesting with fountain pens than with ballpoints. There's many color options available, and some inks have special properties, like drying with fun reflective spots wherever the ink pools or containing microscopic glitter particles to make your writing sparkly.
- Fountain pens, depending on the specific design, are better suited for certain styles of calligraphy than most ballpoint pens are.
But most people who get into fountain pens and ink do so because of aesthetics, not anything objectively superior.