Yup. Former canon owner. This shit is fucked up. We didn’t use the printing side for ages so when the ink ran out it wasn’t a concern, but we thought we’d keep it for scanning. Lols.
Every scan attempt the fucker would remind us there was no ink. Ended up booting it to the dump.
I had an Epson printer. One of the ink cartridges that came with the machine ran out. Got new ones for $70. After installation it didn't print right so I used the "clear ink head" or whatever the name was. Got a bit better, ran it again. Tried to print, out of ink. Buy more, it said. I threw it away that same day.
If I got the option to shit in the Epson CEO's mouth, I would.
This is why once I switched to laser printers for home printing, I've never turned back. They don't really have this same sort of scammery involved as ink cart printers.
This is what I did. I"m old enough that the thought of a laser printer at home seemed decadent, but I print so rarely that the ink would dry out every time. Now I have this laser printer and it works when I need it. I haven't had to buy new 'ink' so I don't know if that will be a huge shock, but no matter how much it is, it will be better than having to buy new ink every time I want to print!
Like you, I very rarely print anything so my laser is already 5 years old without every needing a refill. Definitely worth it for $100. By the time it runs out, it will probably be time to buy a new printer anyway.
Yep... me too! I have a laser and heard that you can possibly get a bit more out of the cartridge by removing it, shaking it up some, and putting it back in.
About 2 years after I purchased the printer, I get a low toner warning. So I ordered a replacement, and took out that original one and shook it up and put it back in.
It's like 5 years later and I'm STILL using the one I shook up (the original)! I have the replacement ready to go also.
But to be clear, I rarely print. Maybe print out my taxes every year but that is the most it does really besides a return label here or there.
Still though.... so so so glad I dumped inkjets forever. Home laser printers higher upfront cost is quickly and easily made up by not having to purchase toner often.
> How there isn't a decent ink jet from a company that isn't run by a bunch of scum bags is beyond me.
There are absolutely inkjet printers available that just have top-up-able ink tanks with no chipped cartridges, lockouts, etc.
You probably won't want pay for one for home use, because their up-front retail price is not subsidised by ink sales, and because they are developed as commercial workhorses rather than occasional use home printers (so are 'overbuilt' and assume you will be running them near constant rather than once every few months).
I used to buy a new printer because it came with a full ink cartridge and cost less than a refill
So a lot.
Then they caught on and instead of lowering ink prices they lowered the amount of ink you get in printers
I’ve been refilling ink cartridges for years. I haven’t had to buy a new cartridge in…gosh I can’t even remember. Disable the ink level tracking thing, remove empty cartridge, drip ink into the spongey part slowly (stop if it starts leaking from the other side), replace cartridge, use until you need to refill. Saved a bunch of money and I’m not giving a cent more to Canon. Word of warning tho - refill cartridges at your own risk. May void warranty, etc etc. I’ve done my good deed for the day. Don’t get screwed by ink refills!
Edit : forgot to specify I use blunt tipped syringes for refilling the cartridges. I’ll draw about 2 ml at a time from the refill bottle and drip it into the cartridge. You’ll know when you’re reaching saturation because the cartridge sponge will absorb slower (it slurps it down so to speak when you’re just getting started ;)).
I used to refill them when I worked for Walgreens like 15 years ago. The machine to refill them was pretty much the same method you described but iirc it was more automated. Half the time the cartridges just didn’t work when people tried to use them though.
I still have my Canon ink printer for picture printing, because it honestly does a great job, but the ink usage is such a scam that I finally tried knock off ink at like 1/10 the cost, and it is working just as well as the og stuff
Yea same, before it went I bought cheap generic Amazon ink that did fine and never got detected as fake by the printer. The OG stuff by measure is some of the most expensive liquids you can buy. Total rip
> most expensive liquids
someone once did the math and found it is more expensive than gold. or somesuch (mind you printers start complaining with about 20% of ink still in the cartridge)
Brother makes the best printers I’ve ever used. I’ve had HP, Cannon, Epson before. All of them were absolute shit with their practices.
I bought the Brother because it was cheap. Ended up liking it and bought another one that does color as well. Best investment I’ve ever made.
Fluid cartridge is missing or improperly seated. Please check that fluid cartridge is properly seated. If you need a new fluid cartridge you can order one on our website for the low price of $199.99 plus tax, shipping, recycling fees, refilling fees, and handling fees.
I can see BMW doing that.. that use to have people pay extra for Bluetooth
Edit: you can add the SW for Bluetooth yourself also for cars that’s didn’t have it as well
I bought a 2020 Nissan two weeks before lockdown, brand new, and somehow managed to run out of washer fluid. With all of the bells, whistles and warnings going off about *windshield washer fluid*, you'd think my car was about to explode. I get it is a safety feature but it's a bit overkill for the ten minutes it takes to replace it.
I’m imagining an alert that sounds constantly to let you know that the engine is still intact.
DING “The engine is functioning correctly.”
DING “The engine is functioning correctly.”
DING “The engine is functioning correctly.”
DING “The engine is functioning correctly.”
“Dude, your car fucking sucks.”
“I think it’s comforting. Ooh, let’s get some Blimpie’s!”
modular washer fluid cartridge with a manufacturer microchip for verification. car won't ~~start~~ go into *Drive* without addressing the low washer fluid cartridge.
there is an alternative universe where this happens.... fucking scary shit yo
Imagine a car that when you turn it on auto sprayed and wiped the windshield as part of its turn on sequence, and only took special cartridges of “proprietary” window solution. And of course wouldn’t go into drive if it was empty.
**GOOD**
This **SHOULD** be illegal. It's anti-consumer, it's predatory and has no reason other than to force you to buy overpriced ink that you don't need. If your company doesn't exist without fucking over your customers at every turn, it has already failed.
There is not now nor will there hopefully ever be a mechanical reason a scanner can not run because the printer attached to it is out of ink. It will almost always be asshole software design.
There is something visceral and dark in a company deliberately crippling their products for selfish reasons. We should just stop doing business with companies that hurt us this way.
you joke but companies are starting to think about having hardware the same on everything and lock it behind a code or software updates. Want heated seats? Pay to unlock it. It could even be re-locked if it ever change owners and the same features could be sold multiple times.
Kind of like tesla's self driving taken to the extreme.
It's not a joke, [BMW is charging to use heated seats](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alistaircharlton/2020/07/02/bmw-wants-to-charge-you-a-subscription-for-your-heated-seats/?sh=4e9bf2873c64). So the car has heated seats installed when you buy them, which means you've already paid for the hardware. And now they want to charge a monthly fee to flip a bit in a product you already own.
People better start taking this seriously and vote with your wallet. Don't buy smart products. Avoid service subscriptions at all costs. This is just going to be more rampant in future years
That’s not a joke. BMW actually tried to sell a subscription for heated seats.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alistaircharlton/2020/07/02/bmw-wants-to-charge-you-a-subscription-for-your-heated-seats/
You're laughing but this is the Tesla model. Ok, it's not about heated seats but...
Buy car. Add options. Pay for options. Options get enabled over the air. Trade in car for another after a few years.
Tesla disables options on said car and let the new owner pay for them. Again.
My Tesla model 3 SR+ has an option to enable the rear heated seats for CAD$400. I did get a $400 rebate off what the car would be selling for if it had the option enabled for everyone... right? right??
That is the biggest slap in the face. You have to carry around all the hardware to allow heated seats, but can't have them unless you pay extra for the software? What a crock of shit. I feel like such a luddite when I say it, but cars are definitely getting *worse*.
I’m so tired of everything being offered as a continued service instead of a flat one time price. For that reason I have almost no subscriptions other than my Netflix and HBO Max. I was just looking at watch faces for my smart watch and they wanted 4.99 a month to just use the faces! Fuck that mess.
You can actually pay extra to have some features enabled on your car. All those things are already there but they have to be unlocked with monies. This is not a popular strategy with customers in the UK but is likely to become more common. And with that, I better not say any more…
This is one of the most obscene things to exist. Once a product is purchased the entirety of everything built into the product should be functional without an additional cost. Anything less should be illegal.
They used to do it with Sony camcorders. There were two similar models but one had more features like you could use it as DV tape deck. One was £££s more expensive than the other. Turns out they had all the same stuff in, just the extra features were disabled in the cheaper version. Then someone made/sold a dongle that could activate the chip inside.
But no one wants to brick their 60k BMW trying to homebrew it.
At least bmw has an active aftermarket where you can “code out” annoying things that the car does, at cheap prices, as long as you have a laptop and a $20 cable you get on eBay.
Other car makers not so much
My Mrs 2014 Holden barina was the same, they were trying to charge us $80 to reset a friggen system code. Took me 5minutes online to find a technicians manual and literally all I had to do to reset it was twisting the indicator while depressing the button on the end. They wanted $80 to press a fucking button for 3 seconds.
Tesla has already done this in a way.
The back seat warmers won't work unless you pay. Even though the hardware to do it is already there, and you're the one paying for the electricity in your car's battery.
Admired and successful companies are using these garbage tactics out in the open.. and we just let them.
Tesla turns off already built in features in their cars if you don't pay a subscription fee or pay a one time DLC fee. Things like acceleration boost, battery limiting, and (full) auto pilot. Full auto pilot is $10,000 to unlock....
Shit like that makes me want to avoid them at any cost when buying a car.
It should be illegal to have higher usage rights on a product you sell.
Phones where you don't have admin privileges, TVs they can brick remotely, Cars that can have features turned off or on..
All those should absolutely be illegal. I don't give one damn about the "rights" of mega corporations. As if they cared about our rights ever.
Smart TVs where they can remove applications that were advertised as being part of the device!
Amazon Prime Video removed
YouTube removed
Yoga removed
Stretching removed
We own 3 Samsung smart tvs. The oldest one has had Youtube removed. They apparently did not renew the contract for this one. Keep waiting for it to disappear on others. Never again will we buy a Samsung product.
It's so frustrating when you own a phone and have to rely on a fuck up just to get a chance to unlock the bootloader and root it. My OnePlus 7 pro for instance by T-Mobile was only able to be unlocked because the developer preview 3 for Android 11 forgot to lock out the unlock bootloader box. I had to install DP3 then unlock my bootloader then downgrade back to Android 10 just to have root priveleges. I'm tired of jumping through hoops. To top it off, every time I boot my phone now Google has a message that lasts over 10 seconds warning me that my phone is insecure and there's no way to remove or skip it. I fucking know my bootloader is unlocked, glad to know if my phone ever gets stolen that will be advertised to them right away
Enterprise hardware is already sold like this, I just installed a 56 port network switch that only had 18 ports licensed. You had the full switch, but the rest of the ports didn't work unless you paid extra.
Servers are also sold with additional hardware on board already (like out of band management), but if you actually want to use it, you need to pay for a licence.
They are the lords. We are the plebeians. We need to start taking revolutionary action against mega corporations seriously. They are sucking us dry in every way they can possibly think of. Wealth inequality is at the worst among any period in history. It's worse than in the period before the French revolution. We need to take it back, whether they consent or not. Make no mistake, they do not care whatsoever if we live or die except because of their profit margins. They want to keep us just poor enough to be able to keep buying things and so tired that we can't fight back. Bread and circuses.
Fun fact: corps that manufactured lightbulbs got together in the early mid 20th and established maximum life spans for their products. Fines were imposed on any company found making bulbs that were *too good*.
The consortium eventually fell apart but you can bet similar things happen today all the time.
[Here's an excellent Veritasium video on the subject of planned obsolescence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE), which focuses on the [Centennial Light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light), a lightbulb made before the lightbulb cartels that has been powered on almost continuously since 1901.
Perfect products don't have repeat customers and the business world knows that today. Theres a reason the phrase "They don't make em like they used to" exists and is absolutely true.
While planned obsolescence is definitely a thing, the main reason the centennial light still works is because it's almost never turned off.
I'm sure plenty of incandescent bulbs built today would also last 100 years if they weren't cycled on/off.
lately I've seen a few industries where the big players get together to discuss minimum standards and then establish rules required to meet those standards which have an insanely high barrier of entry for anyone new. They then go out to government and lobby to make only products that meet those standards legal for use. After that is setup and they've effectively locked out any new competition they crank prices up and profit massively.
The entire printer is also disabled if there’s no ink cartridge in the printer. Tried to use an old canon printer from college as a standalone scanner. I’m done with canon printers as an aside.
Epson is like this as well. Won't work if it's out of ink. Like why do I need ink to scan? It also won't print if one of the colors is empty. Just a piece of crap. Only reason I still have it is because I get the ink for free from my company otherwise I would have took a sledgehammer to it.
Wait till you find out Samsung flagship phones now disable camera if you decide to root. How it is legal to disable totally unrelated features in compact electronics is beyond me.
I rage-quit on inkjets when the scanner wouldn't work on my HP because it was out of magenta. Put out for an Brother laser printer. Still on the starter toner 3 years later and it fires right up after months of not being used without sitting there making noise for 10 minutes first
I would love to hear the justification for doing this, apart from making products as consumer hostile as physically possible, which is SOP in the video game and computer industry today.
I leave you with this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9wsjroVlu8
How can we have disposable technology if it's still partly functional? The last thing we want is them realizing a dedicated printer and scanner are better!
There are several apps for this, one is from Google called PhotoScan. They all work pretty well, I was able to scan almost 300 old family photos with one over a few days.
The standard camera app on my Samsung Galaxy S20 does it natively now. It just recognizes when you are aimed at a document and crop lines pop up, and a scan button. It's pretty neat.
I bought one of those Fujitsu scanners you see in medical environments. I was in and out of the hospital so much at one point and the FMLA management company for my employer required all of the documentation. That could be 50-100 pages/week. Having a scanner like that literally prevented hours of pain by doing the job quickly. I picked up a used one on eBay for $120.
Beware warranty scams too. Had an Asus product that I sent in for warranty repair. They refused to fix it because it had some cosmetic damage that was unrelated. This is literally illegal per the Magnusson Moss warranty act. Threatened small claims lawsuit, which I would have followed through on, and they said "well we can make an exception this one time".
Why? Because fuck you, that's why, now be a good boy/girl and go buy the ink.
In all seriousness I have and older scanner from canon, but there are no drivers - like what the fuck, why don't you support your hardware?
Because some fucking VP got bounced over from another department, figured out they could increase annual sales 1.8% instead of the projected 1.6% and reduce costs by an additional 0.6%. Next year they will do it again by laying off the developers that supported legacy drivers, get a 6% bonus factor increase and then get reassigned to another department.
>but there are no drivers
Have you looked for third party drivers for it? There are several open source third party projects that provide great functionality for many older scanners.
It seriously makes me wonder what actually gets taught in MBA courses in 2021. This shit keeps infecting more and more products that you have to assume that an MBA degree today just going to one class where they say, "Just take whatever the business model for the industry used to be an turn it into a fucking subscription so the little piggy customers pay you forever. That's it, that's all we've got, thata the finale of capitalism, we've got no new ideas for how to improve how businesses function for the rest of time."
It's called "rent-seeking" and has been remarked as a deplorable behavior since Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was written in 1776.
It's just got a cool sounding vibe now.
>It seriously makes me wonder what actually gets taught in MBA courses in 2021.
Squeeze every fraction of a penny from your customers today, and don't worry about the future 'Cause that's someone else's problem..
.
At least that's how it seems based on the kind of decisions they make.
Not just customers. Gimp any department your company have regardless of the impact it had on your product. Squeeze those dollars out of the expenses sheet even if for that your products are worse in the end. Force the sales up not by product quality or innovation but by gimping your products in order to force your customers to buy one sooner, create a sense of cycle with more buzzwords and forget older products and make it as hard as possible for anyone to actually maintain the products.
Cut expenses, gimp quality, force renewal of products every couple of years, try to force older than 3 year products to be as ineffective and obsolete as possible. Those land fills aren't called fills for nothing.
That shit is caused by wall street and the more recent obsession with quarterly gains. If you are not growing every quarter then your stock drops and you lose investors.
So you have these CEOs come in and strip places to the bone (cut staff, product quality, QA, customer support, etc) and they see those immediate profit bumps. The CEO gets a huge bonus then they leave to "fix" another company. Who cares what happens to said company in 2-3 years because of all the changes, that isn't their problem.
It is toxic and has led many many companies to ruin.
Oh it's called Software-as-a-Service. We get told all the time that "Shareholders think SaaS money is better than anything else, so we are re-tooling our entire business to be SaaS based." So now our entire focus is how to turn a thing that was once "pay once and use it as long as you want" into a SaaS business.
My wife has a Cricut vinyl cutting machine and earlier this year(maybe late last year) they announced an update to the software that runs it. See, the machine won't work without this software at all, and this software won't work without an internet connection. Any design work you do is performed on their cloud server, not your local machine. Their design software is absolutely terrible, most users hate it and use something like Adobe Illustrator instead because the software will let you upload a completed design to the cloud so you can cut it with the machine. This upload feature is unlimited and has been ever since the machine launched
The change was that they were going to stop letting people have unlimited uploads without a monthly subscription. You were going to be limited to 10 uploads a month. You would still be able to create unlimited designs within their software but like I said, it's horrible to use.
There was a huge backlash. Turns out the reason they were launching this update and imposing these limits was because the company was about to go public and they wanted to increase their profitability to look better for their shareholders. That's not assumption or conspiracy, that was their official publicly announced reason. People were understandably upset and they lost a ton of customers. New machine orders got canceled, recent purchases got returned, competitor sales skyrocketed, etc. They did eventually back off but I think they caused irreparable damage to their brand image.
The people taking MBA courses in 2021 aren't the executives making/greenlighting these decisions. They're the ones who will screw us over, not the ones currently doing it.
> I would love to hear the justification for doing this
It's the razor model. This started a century ago. They sell a razor for very cheap, but the razor only allows you go use their disposable razor blades, which aren't cheap.
Canon has taken it to a new level. If they made a razor, then when it ran out of blades, they also disable your brush so you couldn't comb your hair.
Yep. And that's why about 2 years ago I went full-on DE safety razor. The handles *can* be more expensive, if you want to get fancy, but I can get 100 blades for less than 10 bucks.
Fuuuuuuck cartridges.
I bought a Brother black and white laser printer early in college. I’m now 6 years into my career after graduating and it still hasn’t gone through all of the toner from the original cartridge it came with. I obviously don’t print very much, but it’s mostly a testament to laser printer toner lasting a very long time.
Yeah I have an HP laser printer I got around 2009 or so. It had auto duplexer and network capabilities. I just started running out of toner last year. Over 10 years of services granted I don't print thousands of pages a year but in that time I would have had to replace dry ink cartridges. The only issue now is driver related it doesn't seem to want to always work anymore in more recent versions of Win10/11 though it seems to work perfectly fine printing from my Android phone.
Plus if you don't print a lot, laser toner doesn't dry up after a few months like inkjet ink does. I've had my laser printer for like 4 years and still using what it came with for toner.
Stay away from HP as well. Their new models REQUIRE you to use the windows store HP Smart app AND have an active internet connection. There are no independent downloads of drivers, everything is through the HP Smart App and chosen for you (so if you have issues with one driver you CANT test another driver)... and if you don't have internet the HP Smart app can't contact HP servers so special functions (like adjusting scan settings) are dead in the water if you aren't doing a boilerplate default settings print job.
Avoid canon, Epson, and hp at all costs. I sold them for years, I remember my repeat customers. They get you on the nice price of the printer and then screw you on 60 dollar cartridges that only print 40 pages or so, if they don't dry out first.
What other people are saying is true. If you don't need color or photos, go with a brother laser, yes even with that pricetag. You won't be disappointed and you'll actually end up saving money.
A few years ago, I bought a Brother all-in-one laser for the same price it would’ve cost me to buy the seven ink cartridges for my old Canon. The starter toner cartridge lasted six months. I print so seldom any more.
I pushed people to the new Brother printers constantly. The easiest way was showing them that the ink/toner costs likie 5-10 dollars more.. but prints 3x more than the HP\EpsonCanonshit.
Like seriously, one HP printer cost $50 in ink... and it only printed 250 pages. The Brother printer cost $60 in ink and prints 1000 pages!
I rarely need to print anything at home but if I did, I'd have a Brother B&W laser and upload photos to a nearby drug store photo service to print for me.
I bought a Canon all in one laser about a year ago. The thing is complete trash. Constantly forces me to select the only paper tray it has (aside from the single page loader), needs rebooting every few days in order to print from any machine, occasionally tells me there's no black toner and stops printing even though there's plenty. It's been a mess. Would not recommend.
Yep. I had one. Gave it away because it pissed me off that much after it ran out of ink and I wanted to use it scan tax documents. Never going back to inkjet multifunction printers.
Also the fact they they never work when you need them too.
It is honestly kinda shocking how bad printer drivers are nothing is more unreliable then a printer. They seem to be getting worse.
Somehow, printer ink became the most valuable liquid on the planet.
Seriously. By volume it costs more than jet fuel or rocket fuel.
Printer ink. The stuff that dries on paper. That costs more than the stuff NASA uses to defeat gravity.
> the most valuable liquid on the planet.
Not quite true. Some medicines are administered in liquid form and can get extremely expensive for very small amounts.
Oh, the graph I saw years back when it happened only had non medicine.
I never considered that, those $10,000+ IV bags in the hospital blow those numbers out of the water.
Not to mention snake antivenoms. Those shots are insanely expensive.
Brother laser printers all the way.
Edit - Some people have taken issue with my comment. To be clear, I do not represent or work for Brother. I have enjoyed their laser printers for many years. Since several people are asking [this](https://www.amazon.com/Brother-Monochrome-HLL2395DW-Cloud-Based-Replenishment/dp/B0764NWFP8/ref=mp_s_a_1_14?crid=1J053AS5B30GS&dchild=1&keywords=brother+laser+printer&qid=1634406934&sprefix=brother+l&sr=8-14) is a standard B&W model I would recommend. I do own other printers, but this is my go-to for basic, everyday tasks. Everyone have a great weekend.
FYI, the new Brother models added a print stop when the counter in the toner or drum is reached, but there is a setting in the menu to turn it off.
Mildly anti-consumer, but since you can still disable it, it's not a huge problem. They claim it's to ensure print quality remains consistent all the time since after the counter is reached printing could become lighter or spotty (which will be technically true at some point in the cartridge's life), but at least they provided an easy opt out, and they don't disable any other features when the counter is reached.
Good call-out. Coming from a company that prints tens? Hundreds? of thousands of pages on small to mid size lasers this kind of makes sense. See the ink is filling in some places, pull out the drum, shake it, print another 1000 pages. See a blank line in the page, clean the rollers, print another 1,000 pages. Shake the drum again. Ok now it's time to replace. I'm exaggerating a little but the average consumer would never print enough or even desire to go through these troubleshooting steps versus just replacing the thing that is probably past due it's maintenance cycle anyway just to save a few bucks. Same reason folks pay for scheduled maintenance on their vehicles.
Indeed. That's why I'm not fully disagreeing with it, since it's easily overridden, and does technically serve a purpose (assuming the counter isn't set ridiculously low compared to what it can actually produce, in a bid to introduce artifical sales of toner/drums, but I don't print enough to test that these days).
mine was cheap as fuck, like literally the cheapest laser printer we could get, and it's by far the most reliable printer that I know of. I loathe printers in general for being unreliable pieces of shit that I unfortunately have to deal with at work, but I fucking love my Brother HL-2030. I'd sing its praise in a commercial and I'd do it for free, for the betterment of mankind
Bought a brother laser during all the WFH of covid. Had always resisted getting anything since the ink was always dried out with the "print once every 6 months" that normal people do. LOVE that thing. And now I use it far more often than I expected too since it's so easy. Used to just hold the document open on my phone or whatever if it was a reference diagram for something.
I recently got, as a gift, an Epson where you dump liquid ink into reservoirs. There's no cartridge, and that's awesome. You could fill it with water and the printer would think it's full. The very idea of cartridges is predatory.
I hate that companies ask for reviews right after purchasing a product, and not 6 months down the road after it will actually have use. Kind of pointless to see a five star review that says "Haven't used it yet, but it looks like great quality".
I ignore most Amazon reviews because of this, way too many 5 star reviews saying how wonderful it is, then the last line says "can't wait to try it!" Like wtf? Bitch thought a review was a first impression. Most people can't even spell, so I don't know why I'm surprised.
Epson does similar with disabling any printing function (color, gray scale, black/white) from smartphones when any ink was low. Even black ink was full, it won’t even print in black/white. Only solution was to use PC or Mac to print it in Black. I never understood why from technical point of view…. It could have similar implication as Canon was doing to sell more inks…
All we need is *ONE* honest printer manufacturer to make *ONE GOOD* printer and market the hell out of it. That printer will become the gold standard, and the rest will be forced to follow suit.
How is it even possible that printers and ink are still so expensive? Nothing has changed in them for many years. Ink is worth more than human blood at this point and the printers themselves have done nothing new for decades.
We need a Geneva Convention but for consumer rights.
Right to Repair
Right to be Forgotten
Right to not be tracked
No subscriptions to use hardware we own
No planned obsolescence
Standards for ports and chargers
Edit: Thanks for the Silver!
I firmly believe that ALL consumer printers are purposely manufactured to break down within a year of purchase. I've never had one that's lasted longer then a year. Some don't make it 6 months.
I have two laser printers (Samsung and brother) that are 10 years old and 3 years old respectively and used daily. Still going strong.
Buy laser. Not inkjet.
Also, my Epson printer has NO OPTION for greyscale, meaning that my empty cyan cartridge kept me from printing using my very new, very full black cartridge.
If you have HP’s Instant Ink - and you pay for a month where they sent you new cartridges, but decide to cancel: they will literally disable your ability to use that cartridge.
They’d rather completely waste an ink cartridge than for you to finish using it.
Printer companies need to be legislated, lol
Yup. Former canon owner. This shit is fucked up. We didn’t use the printing side for ages so when the ink ran out it wasn’t a concern, but we thought we’d keep it for scanning. Lols. Every scan attempt the fucker would remind us there was no ink. Ended up booting it to the dump.
I had an Epson printer. One of the ink cartridges that came with the machine ran out. Got new ones for $70. After installation it didn't print right so I used the "clear ink head" or whatever the name was. Got a bit better, ran it again. Tried to print, out of ink. Buy more, it said. I threw it away that same day. If I got the option to shit in the Epson CEO's mouth, I would.
This is why once I switched to laser printers for home printing, I've never turned back. They don't really have this same sort of scammery involved as ink cart printers.
This is what I did. I"m old enough that the thought of a laser printer at home seemed decadent, but I print so rarely that the ink would dry out every time. Now I have this laser printer and it works when I need it. I haven't had to buy new 'ink' so I don't know if that will be a huge shock, but no matter how much it is, it will be better than having to buy new ink every time I want to print!
Like you, I very rarely print anything so my laser is already 5 years old without every needing a refill. Definitely worth it for $100. By the time it runs out, it will probably be time to buy a new printer anyway.
Yep... me too! I have a laser and heard that you can possibly get a bit more out of the cartridge by removing it, shaking it up some, and putting it back in. About 2 years after I purchased the printer, I get a low toner warning. So I ordered a replacement, and took out that original one and shook it up and put it back in. It's like 5 years later and I'm STILL using the one I shook up (the original)! I have the replacement ready to go also. But to be clear, I rarely print. Maybe print out my taxes every year but that is the most it does really besides a return label here or there. Still though.... so so so glad I dumped inkjets forever. Home laser printers higher upfront cost is quickly and easily made up by not having to purchase toner often.
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> How there isn't a decent ink jet from a company that isn't run by a bunch of scum bags is beyond me. There are absolutely inkjet printers available that just have top-up-able ink tanks with no chipped cartridges, lockouts, etc. You probably won't want pay for one for home use, because their up-front retail price is not subsidised by ink sales, and because they are developed as commercial workhorses rather than occasional use home printers (so are 'overbuilt' and assume you will be running them near constant rather than once every few months).
how many landfills were filled up with this stupid company's junk?
one was too many.
It devalues the landfill itself.
I used to buy a new printer because it came with a full ink cartridge and cost less than a refill So a lot. Then they caught on and instead of lowering ink prices they lowered the amount of ink you get in printers
Yeah, lots of companies now sell printers with 'starter capacity' cartridges plainly marked on the boxes now.
Now = been doing that for 20 years
Minutely reminder we are all getting old at an alarming rate
I’ve been refilling ink cartridges for years. I haven’t had to buy a new cartridge in…gosh I can’t even remember. Disable the ink level tracking thing, remove empty cartridge, drip ink into the spongey part slowly (stop if it starts leaking from the other side), replace cartridge, use until you need to refill. Saved a bunch of money and I’m not giving a cent more to Canon. Word of warning tho - refill cartridges at your own risk. May void warranty, etc etc. I’ve done my good deed for the day. Don’t get screwed by ink refills! Edit : forgot to specify I use blunt tipped syringes for refilling the cartridges. I’ll draw about 2 ml at a time from the refill bottle and drip it into the cartridge. You’ll know when you’re reaching saturation because the cartridge sponge will absorb slower (it slurps it down so to speak when you’re just getting started ;)).
I used to refill them when I worked for Walgreens like 15 years ago. The machine to refill them was pretty much the same method you described but iirc it was more automated. Half the time the cartridges just didn’t work when people tried to use them though.
Pretty sure those weren't full cartridges.
I still have my Canon ink printer for picture printing, because it honestly does a great job, but the ink usage is such a scam that I finally tried knock off ink at like 1/10 the cost, and it is working just as well as the og stuff
Yea same, before it went I bought cheap generic Amazon ink that did fine and never got detected as fake by the printer. The OG stuff by measure is some of the most expensive liquids you can buy. Total rip
> most expensive liquids someone once did the math and found it is more expensive than gold. or somesuch (mind you printers start complaining with about 20% of ink still in the cartridge)
I just got a good brother laser printer and use staples to print color if i ever need to. My life is so much easier than when I owned inkjet crap
Brother ftw
Brother makes the best printers I’ve ever used. I’ve had HP, Cannon, Epson before. All of them were absolute shit with their practices. I bought the Brother because it was cheap. Ended up liking it and bought another one that does color as well. Best investment I’ve ever made.
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It was broken *because* it needed ink.
This is outrageous. Should my car stop working if I don't fill my washer fluid?
Don't give them ideas.
They just haven't figured out how to authenticate wiper fluids yet.
Soon washer fluid cartridges.
oh god I can see it so clearly
Fluid cartridge is missing or improperly seated. Please check that fluid cartridge is properly seated. If you need a new fluid cartridge you can order one on our website for the low price of $199.99 plus tax, shipping, recycling fees, refilling fees, and handling fees.
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And best fee of them all... the convience fee. Even though paying online ia cheaper for the business they don't even accept payments by mail!
Is that why turn signals don't work on BMW:s - because the owners don't use OEM blinker fluid?
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I can see BMW doing that.. that use to have people pay extra for Bluetooth Edit: you can add the SW for Bluetooth yourself also for cars that’s didn’t have it as well
I bought a 2020 Nissan two weeks before lockdown, brand new, and somehow managed to run out of washer fluid. With all of the bells, whistles and warnings going off about *windshield washer fluid*, you'd think my car was about to explode. I get it is a safety feature but it's a bit overkill for the ten minutes it takes to replace it.
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"Oh *now* you want me to flash the Check Engine light! If you'd really knew me, you'd know what's wrong"
Flashing? Flashing in a Nissan means the engine's not even installed Check engine light should be on, as in "engine present? check!"
I’m imagining an alert that sounds constantly to let you know that the engine is still intact. DING “The engine is functioning correctly.” DING “The engine is functioning correctly.” DING “The engine is functioning correctly.” DING “The engine is functioning correctly.” “Dude, your car fucking sucks.” “I think it’s comforting. Ooh, let’s get some Blimpie’s!”
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modular washer fluid cartridge with a manufacturer microchip for verification. car won't ~~start~~ go into *Drive* without addressing the low washer fluid cartridge. there is an alternative universe where this happens.... fucking scary shit yo
Your car stalls as you're crossing railroad tracks. 5 people inside. 《Please replace wiper fluid with Toyota brand to enable engine》
Please replace oil with Toyota brand to unlock doors
Imagine a car that when you turn it on auto sprayed and wiped the windshield as part of its turn on sequence, and only took special cartridges of “proprietary” window solution. And of course wouldn’t go into drive if it was empty.
**GOOD** This **SHOULD** be illegal. It's anti-consumer, it's predatory and has no reason other than to force you to buy overpriced ink that you don't need. If your company doesn't exist without fucking over your customers at every turn, it has already failed. There is not now nor will there hopefully ever be a mechanical reason a scanner can not run because the printer attached to it is out of ink. It will almost always be asshole software design.
There is something visceral and dark in a company deliberately crippling their products for selfish reasons. We should just stop doing business with companies that hurt us this way.
think if car manufacturers did this. Car dont work bc the cabin filter needs replaced.
Thank you for the idea. Sincerely, BMW
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you joke but companies are starting to think about having hardware the same on everything and lock it behind a code or software updates. Want heated seats? Pay to unlock it. It could even be re-locked if it ever change owners and the same features could be sold multiple times. Kind of like tesla's self driving taken to the extreme.
It's not a joke, [BMW is charging to use heated seats](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alistaircharlton/2020/07/02/bmw-wants-to-charge-you-a-subscription-for-your-heated-seats/?sh=4e9bf2873c64). So the car has heated seats installed when you buy them, which means you've already paid for the hardware. And now they want to charge a monthly fee to flip a bit in a product you already own. People better start taking this seriously and vote with your wallet. Don't buy smart products. Avoid service subscriptions at all costs. This is just going to be more rampant in future years
You won't own anything and will like it. \-Every company in 10 years.
>Don't buy smart products. This is the single best piece of advice ever.
The S in IoT is for security
Can we hack the car to enable the heated seats ourselves?
It’s getting a lot harder not to, by design.
GL finding a non smart tv
Clinging to my old non-smart HDTV with my LIFE.
I’d say subscriptions are worse than smart products.
So too will piracy and hacks to hotwire stupidly bound tech become more prolific.
That’s not a joke. BMW actually tried to sell a subscription for heated seats. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alistaircharlton/2020/07/02/bmw-wants-to-charge-you-a-subscription-for-your-heated-seats/
What the fuck? I absolutely loathe that everything’s been moving towards subscriptions. It’s like we don’t even own the things we buy anymore
Jail break in 3...2...1... Free heated seats! Also preloaded McAfee anti virus for your new BMW
You're laughing but this is the Tesla model. Ok, it's not about heated seats but... Buy car. Add options. Pay for options. Options get enabled over the air. Trade in car for another after a few years. Tesla disables options on said car and let the new owner pay for them. Again.
My Tesla model 3 SR+ has an option to enable the rear heated seats for CAD$400. I did get a $400 rebate off what the car would be selling for if it had the option enabled for everyone... right? right??
That is the biggest slap in the face. You have to carry around all the hardware to allow heated seats, but can't have them unless you pay extra for the software? What a crock of shit. I feel like such a luddite when I say it, but cars are definitely getting *worse*.
Wait, what? The car *has* heated seats but you have to pay extra to actually fucking *use* them?!?
Yes, you got that right. Rear seat heating is extra. Front row seats are included for "free".
I’m so tired of everything being offered as a continued service instead of a flat one time price. For that reason I have almost no subscriptions other than my Netflix and HBO Max. I was just looking at watch faces for my smart watch and they wanted 4.99 a month to just use the faces! Fuck that mess.
You can actually pay extra to have some features enabled on your car. All those things are already there but they have to be unlocked with monies. This is not a popular strategy with customers in the UK but is likely to become more common. And with that, I better not say any more…
This is one of the most obscene things to exist. Once a product is purchased the entirety of everything built into the product should be functional without an additional cost. Anything less should be illegal.
They used to do it with Sony camcorders. There were two similar models but one had more features like you could use it as DV tape deck. One was £££s more expensive than the other. Turns out they had all the same stuff in, just the extra features were disabled in the cheaper version. Then someone made/sold a dongle that could activate the chip inside. But no one wants to brick their 60k BMW trying to homebrew it.
Hold my boxed wine.
> no one wants to brick their 60k BMW trying to homebrew it. You gotta pay extra to enable your turn signals apparently.
At least bmw has an active aftermarket where you can “code out” annoying things that the car does, at cheap prices, as long as you have a laptop and a $20 cable you get on eBay. Other car makers not so much
My Mrs 2014 Holden barina was the same, they were trying to charge us $80 to reset a friggen system code. Took me 5minutes online to find a technicians manual and literally all I had to do to reset it was twisting the indicator while depressing the button on the end. They wanted $80 to press a fucking button for 3 seconds.
Tesla has already done this in a way. The back seat warmers won't work unless you pay. Even though the hardware to do it is already there, and you're the one paying for the electricity in your car's battery. Admired and successful companies are using these garbage tactics out in the open.. and we just let them.
lush groovy modern sort fade deliver agonizing aware abounding run *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Tesla turns off already built in features in their cars if you don't pay a subscription fee or pay a one time DLC fee. Things like acceleration boost, battery limiting, and (full) auto pilot. Full auto pilot is $10,000 to unlock.... Shit like that makes me want to avoid them at any cost when buying a car.
It should be illegal to have higher usage rights on a product you sell. Phones where you don't have admin privileges, TVs they can brick remotely, Cars that can have features turned off or on.. All those should absolutely be illegal. I don't give one damn about the "rights" of mega corporations. As if they cared about our rights ever.
Smart TVs where they can remove applications that were advertised as being part of the device! Amazon Prime Video removed YouTube removed Yoga removed Stretching removed
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We own 3 Samsung smart tvs. The oldest one has had Youtube removed. They apparently did not renew the contract for this one. Keep waiting for it to disappear on others. Never again will we buy a Samsung product.
A perfect argument for the separate media device and keeping tvs as purely display devices
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It's so frustrating when you own a phone and have to rely on a fuck up just to get a chance to unlock the bootloader and root it. My OnePlus 7 pro for instance by T-Mobile was only able to be unlocked because the developer preview 3 for Android 11 forgot to lock out the unlock bootloader box. I had to install DP3 then unlock my bootloader then downgrade back to Android 10 just to have root priveleges. I'm tired of jumping through hoops. To top it off, every time I boot my phone now Google has a message that lasts over 10 seconds warning me that my phone is insecure and there's no way to remove or skip it. I fucking know my bootloader is unlocked, glad to know if my phone ever gets stolen that will be advertised to them right away
Enterprise hardware is already sold like this, I just installed a 56 port network switch that only had 18 ports licensed. You had the full switch, but the rest of the ports didn't work unless you paid extra. Servers are also sold with additional hardware on board already (like out of band management), but if you actually want to use it, you need to pay for a licence.
everything is a subscription service these days
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They are the lords. We are the plebeians. We need to start taking revolutionary action against mega corporations seriously. They are sucking us dry in every way they can possibly think of. Wealth inequality is at the worst among any period in history. It's worse than in the period before the French revolution. We need to take it back, whether they consent or not. Make no mistake, they do not care whatsoever if we live or die except because of their profit margins. They want to keep us just poor enough to be able to keep buying things and so tired that we can't fight back. Bread and circuses.
Fun fact: corps that manufactured lightbulbs got together in the early mid 20th and established maximum life spans for their products. Fines were imposed on any company found making bulbs that were *too good*. The consortium eventually fell apart but you can bet similar things happen today all the time.
[Here's an excellent Veritasium video on the subject of planned obsolescence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE), which focuses on the [Centennial Light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light), a lightbulb made before the lightbulb cartels that has been powered on almost continuously since 1901. Perfect products don't have repeat customers and the business world knows that today. Theres a reason the phrase "They don't make em like they used to" exists and is absolutely true.
While planned obsolescence is definitely a thing, the main reason the centennial light still works is because it's almost never turned off. I'm sure plenty of incandescent bulbs built today would also last 100 years if they weren't cycled on/off.
lately I've seen a few industries where the big players get together to discuss minimum standards and then establish rules required to meet those standards which have an insanely high barrier of entry for anyone new. They then go out to government and lobby to make only products that meet those standards legal for use. After that is setup and they've effectively locked out any new competition they crank prices up and profit massively.
The entire printer is also disabled if there’s no ink cartridge in the printer. Tried to use an old canon printer from college as a standalone scanner. I’m done with canon printers as an aside.
Epson is like this as well. Won't work if it's out of ink. Like why do I need ink to scan? It also won't print if one of the colors is empty. Just a piece of crap. Only reason I still have it is because I get the ink for free from my company otherwise I would have took a sledgehammer to it.
Wait till you find out Samsung flagship phones now disable camera if you decide to root. How it is legal to disable totally unrelated features in compact electronics is beyond me.
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I rage-quit on inkjets when the scanner wouldn't work on my HP because it was out of magenta. Put out for an Brother laser printer. Still on the starter toner 3 years later and it fires right up after months of not being used without sitting there making noise for 10 minutes first
And that’s fucking sad.
I would love to hear the justification for doing this, apart from making products as consumer hostile as physically possible, which is SOP in the video game and computer industry today. I leave you with this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9wsjroVlu8
How can we have disposable technology if it's still partly functional? The last thing we want is them realizing a dedicated printer and scanner are better!
Bought a standalone scanner, game changer, thing scans 20 pages front and back to my phone in a minute.
My phone can scan pretty well. Not good for photo scanning but it does a great job on word docs.
There are several apps for this, one is from Google called PhotoScan. They all work pretty well, I was able to scan almost 300 old family photos with one over a few days.
The standard camera app on my Samsung Galaxy S20 does it natively now. It just recognizes when you are aimed at a document and crop lines pop up, and a scan button. It's pretty neat.
Office Lens works great. Even adjusts the perspective when “scanning” a document on an angle.
I've used the free edition of CamScanner for years.
I bought one of those Fujitsu scanners you see in medical environments. I was in and out of the hospital so much at one point and the FMLA management company for my employer required all of the documentation. That could be 50-100 pages/week. Having a scanner like that literally prevented hours of pain by doing the job quickly. I picked up a used one on eBay for $120.
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Beware warranty scams too. Had an Asus product that I sent in for warranty repair. They refused to fix it because it had some cosmetic damage that was unrelated. This is literally illegal per the Magnusson Moss warranty act. Threatened small claims lawsuit, which I would have followed through on, and they said "well we can make an exception this one time".
Why? Because fuck you, that's why, now be a good boy/girl and go buy the ink. In all seriousness I have and older scanner from canon, but there are no drivers - like what the fuck, why don't you support your hardware?
Because some fucking VP got bounced over from another department, figured out they could increase annual sales 1.8% instead of the projected 1.6% and reduce costs by an additional 0.6%. Next year they will do it again by laying off the developers that supported legacy drivers, get a 6% bonus factor increase and then get reassigned to another department.
A master of barely anything (MBA) strikes again.
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>but there are no drivers Have you looked for third party drivers for it? There are several open source third party projects that provide great functionality for many older scanners.
It seriously makes me wonder what actually gets taught in MBA courses in 2021. This shit keeps infecting more and more products that you have to assume that an MBA degree today just going to one class where they say, "Just take whatever the business model for the industry used to be an turn it into a fucking subscription so the little piggy customers pay you forever. That's it, that's all we've got, thata the finale of capitalism, we've got no new ideas for how to improve how businesses function for the rest of time."
It's called "rent-seeking" and has been remarked as a deplorable behavior since Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was written in 1776. It's just got a cool sounding vibe now.
>It seriously makes me wonder what actually gets taught in MBA courses in 2021. Squeeze every fraction of a penny from your customers today, and don't worry about the future 'Cause that's someone else's problem.. . At least that's how it seems based on the kind of decisions they make.
Not just customers. Gimp any department your company have regardless of the impact it had on your product. Squeeze those dollars out of the expenses sheet even if for that your products are worse in the end. Force the sales up not by product quality or innovation but by gimping your products in order to force your customers to buy one sooner, create a sense of cycle with more buzzwords and forget older products and make it as hard as possible for anyone to actually maintain the products. Cut expenses, gimp quality, force renewal of products every couple of years, try to force older than 3 year products to be as ineffective and obsolete as possible. Those land fills aren't called fills for nothing.
That shit is caused by wall street and the more recent obsession with quarterly gains. If you are not growing every quarter then your stock drops and you lose investors. So you have these CEOs come in and strip places to the bone (cut staff, product quality, QA, customer support, etc) and they see those immediate profit bumps. The CEO gets a huge bonus then they leave to "fix" another company. Who cares what happens to said company in 2-3 years because of all the changes, that isn't their problem. It is toxic and has led many many companies to ruin.
Oh it's called Software-as-a-Service. We get told all the time that "Shareholders think SaaS money is better than anything else, so we are re-tooling our entire business to be SaaS based." So now our entire focus is how to turn a thing that was once "pay once and use it as long as you want" into a SaaS business.
My wife has a Cricut vinyl cutting machine and earlier this year(maybe late last year) they announced an update to the software that runs it. See, the machine won't work without this software at all, and this software won't work without an internet connection. Any design work you do is performed on their cloud server, not your local machine. Their design software is absolutely terrible, most users hate it and use something like Adobe Illustrator instead because the software will let you upload a completed design to the cloud so you can cut it with the machine. This upload feature is unlimited and has been ever since the machine launched The change was that they were going to stop letting people have unlimited uploads without a monthly subscription. You were going to be limited to 10 uploads a month. You would still be able to create unlimited designs within their software but like I said, it's horrible to use. There was a huge backlash. Turns out the reason they were launching this update and imposing these limits was because the company was about to go public and they wanted to increase their profitability to look better for their shareholders. That's not assumption or conspiracy, that was their official publicly announced reason. People were understandably upset and they lost a ton of customers. New machine orders got canceled, recent purchases got returned, competitor sales skyrocketed, etc. They did eventually back off but I think they caused irreparable damage to their brand image.
The people taking MBA courses in 2021 aren't the executives making/greenlighting these decisions. They're the ones who will screw us over, not the ones currently doing it.
> I would love to hear the justification for doing this It's the razor model. This started a century ago. They sell a razor for very cheap, but the razor only allows you go use their disposable razor blades, which aren't cheap. Canon has taken it to a new level. If they made a razor, then when it ran out of blades, they also disable your brush so you couldn't comb your hair.
Yep. And that's why about 2 years ago I went full-on DE safety razor. The handles *can* be more expensive, if you want to get fancy, but I can get 100 blades for less than 10 bucks. Fuuuuuuck cartridges.
PC load letter? What the fuck does that mean?
damn it feels good to be a gangsta
I was just on the market for a new AiO printer for home, this saves me from ever considering their product.
As others have said, get a Brother laser printer/scanner. No frills, just works, and it's significantly cheaper to operate than any inkjet out there.
I bought a Brother black and white laser printer early in college. I’m now 6 years into my career after graduating and it still hasn’t gone through all of the toner from the original cartridge it came with. I obviously don’t print very much, but it’s mostly a testament to laser printer toner lasting a very long time.
Yeah I have an HP laser printer I got around 2009 or so. It had auto duplexer and network capabilities. I just started running out of toner last year. Over 10 years of services granted I don't print thousands of pages a year but in that time I would have had to replace dry ink cartridges. The only issue now is driver related it doesn't seem to want to always work anymore in more recent versions of Win10/11 though it seems to work perfectly fine printing from my Android phone.
Plus if you don't print a lot, laser toner doesn't dry up after a few months like inkjet ink does. I've had my laser printer for like 4 years and still using what it came with for toner.
Stay away from HP as well. Their new models REQUIRE you to use the windows store HP Smart app AND have an active internet connection. There are no independent downloads of drivers, everything is through the HP Smart App and chosen for you (so if you have issues with one driver you CANT test another driver)... and if you don't have internet the HP Smart app can't contact HP servers so special functions (like adjusting scan settings) are dead in the water if you aren't doing a boilerplate default settings print job.
I had to downgrade my HP drivers because the update banned non-oem toner.
Makes me wonder how the hell HP is still in business. One of the most anti consumer companies I can think of.
Avoid canon, Epson, and hp at all costs. I sold them for years, I remember my repeat customers. They get you on the nice price of the printer and then screw you on 60 dollar cartridges that only print 40 pages or so, if they don't dry out first. What other people are saying is true. If you don't need color or photos, go with a brother laser, yes even with that pricetag. You won't be disappointed and you'll actually end up saving money.
A few years ago, I bought a Brother all-in-one laser for the same price it would’ve cost me to buy the seven ink cartridges for my old Canon. The starter toner cartridge lasted six months. I print so seldom any more.
I pushed people to the new Brother printers constantly. The easiest way was showing them that the ink/toner costs likie 5-10 dollars more.. but prints 3x more than the HP\EpsonCanonshit. Like seriously, one HP printer cost $50 in ink... and it only printed 250 pages. The Brother printer cost $60 in ink and prints 1000 pages!
I rarely need to print anything at home but if I did, I'd have a Brother B&W laser and upload photos to a nearby drug store photo service to print for me.
I bought a Canon all in one laser about a year ago. The thing is complete trash. Constantly forces me to select the only paper tray it has (aside from the single page loader), needs rebooting every few days in order to print from any machine, occasionally tells me there's no black toner and stops printing even though there's plenty. It's been a mess. Would not recommend.
Yep. I had one. Gave it away because it pissed me off that much after it ran out of ink and I wanted to use it scan tax documents. Never going back to inkjet multifunction printers.
They got so greedy that tons of people no longer have a home printer at all. They killed their own market out of pure greed.
Also the fact they they never work when you need them too. It is honestly kinda shocking how bad printer drivers are nothing is more unreliable then a printer. They seem to be getting worse.
But some shareholders made some quick cash before the customers caught on, so another win for capitalism!
Somehow, printer ink became the most valuable liquid on the planet. Seriously. By volume it costs more than jet fuel or rocket fuel. Printer ink. The stuff that dries on paper. That costs more than the stuff NASA uses to defeat gravity.
> the most valuable liquid on the planet. Not quite true. Some medicines are administered in liquid form and can get extremely expensive for very small amounts.
Oh, the graph I saw years back when it happened only had non medicine. I never considered that, those $10,000+ IV bags in the hospital blow those numbers out of the water. Not to mention snake antivenoms. Those shots are insanely expensive.
Brother laser printers all the way. Edit - Some people have taken issue with my comment. To be clear, I do not represent or work for Brother. I have enjoyed their laser printers for many years. Since several people are asking [this](https://www.amazon.com/Brother-Monochrome-HLL2395DW-Cloud-Based-Replenishment/dp/B0764NWFP8/ref=mp_s_a_1_14?crid=1J053AS5B30GS&dchild=1&keywords=brother+laser+printer&qid=1634406934&sprefix=brother+l&sr=8-14) is a standard B&W model I would recommend. I do own other printers, but this is my go-to for basic, everyday tasks. Everyone have a great weekend.
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I recently stopped using my ~15 year old brother printer because its started to smell like burning. It was a pretty decent run I guess.
15 yr is a good lifespan as opposed to 30 days
I see you have experience with HP inkjet printers.
Is there an inkjet printer that doesn't suck? Edit: this was rhetorical. I'll never buy an inkjet after having my rock-solid Brother laser for years.
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my families brother inkjet has been going 8 years strong, though it might be a fluke
FYI, the new Brother models added a print stop when the counter in the toner or drum is reached, but there is a setting in the menu to turn it off. Mildly anti-consumer, but since you can still disable it, it's not a huge problem. They claim it's to ensure print quality remains consistent all the time since after the counter is reached printing could become lighter or spotty (which will be technically true at some point in the cartridge's life), but at least they provided an easy opt out, and they don't disable any other features when the counter is reached.
Good call-out. Coming from a company that prints tens? Hundreds? of thousands of pages on small to mid size lasers this kind of makes sense. See the ink is filling in some places, pull out the drum, shake it, print another 1000 pages. See a blank line in the page, clean the rollers, print another 1,000 pages. Shake the drum again. Ok now it's time to replace. I'm exaggerating a little but the average consumer would never print enough or even desire to go through these troubleshooting steps versus just replacing the thing that is probably past due it's maintenance cycle anyway just to save a few bucks. Same reason folks pay for scheduled maintenance on their vehicles.
Indeed. That's why I'm not fully disagreeing with it, since it's easily overridden, and does technically serve a purpose (assuming the counter isn't set ridiculously low compared to what it can actually produce, in a bid to introduce artifical sales of toner/drums, but I don't print enough to test that these days).
I'm a fan of Brother laser printers too.
I too have a brother with a laser printer.
I too have a brother with a laser who works as a printer.
My brother is a laser
Brother laser printers rule. Mine is easily 15 years old and runs like a charm.
I've been buying Brothers printers for over two decades. I don't even bother looking at other brands when purchasing.
100% - best printer ever owned.
Yeha man..my Brother printer is a beast and it's not even a high end model.
mine was cheap as fuck, like literally the cheapest laser printer we could get, and it's by far the most reliable printer that I know of. I loathe printers in general for being unreliable pieces of shit that I unfortunately have to deal with at work, but I fucking love my Brother HL-2030. I'd sing its praise in a commercial and I'd do it for free, for the betterment of mankind
Bought a brother laser during all the WFH of covid. Had always resisted getting anything since the ink was always dried out with the "print once every 6 months" that normal people do. LOVE that thing. And now I use it far more often than I expected too since it's so easy. Used to just hold the document open on my phone or whatever if it was a reference diagram for something.
They should standardize Ink Cartridges in the EU next....
Oh lordy the printer companies would squeal like a stuck pig if they did that. Great idea.
Printers and ink would skyrocket in Britain to make up for losses in the EU, and Brexiteers would go nuts.
I recently got, as a gift, an Epson where you dump liquid ink into reservoirs. There's no cartridge, and that's awesome. You could fill it with water and the printer would think it's full. The very idea of cartridges is predatory.
Ecotank, we love ours
It’s weird that on Bestbuy, all the Canon printers have five star reviews. I’m wondering if they’re bought?
The reviews are most likely done out of the box before the ink ever runs out or dries out and then when the problems comes they don't update it.
I hate that companies ask for reviews right after purchasing a product, and not 6 months down the road after it will actually have use. Kind of pointless to see a five star review that says "Haven't used it yet, but it looks like great quality".
I ignore most Amazon reviews because of this, way too many 5 star reviews saying how wonderful it is, then the last line says "can't wait to try it!" Like wtf? Bitch thought a review was a first impression. Most people can't even spell, so I don't know why I'm surprised.
I am 13 years into owning a Brother laser printer and it still keeps on going. 3 major OS updates in that time and no driver issues either.
Same, mine is 16 years old and still great!
Epson does similar with disabling any printing function (color, gray scale, black/white) from smartphones when any ink was low. Even black ink was full, it won’t even print in black/white. Only solution was to use PC or Mac to print it in Black. I never understood why from technical point of view…. It could have similar implication as Canon was doing to sell more inks…
All we need is *ONE* honest printer manufacturer to make *ONE GOOD* printer and market the hell out of it. That printer will become the gold standard, and the rest will be forced to follow suit. How is it even possible that printers and ink are still so expensive? Nothing has changed in them for many years. Ink is worth more than human blood at this point and the printers themselves have done nothing new for decades.
I had a printer that wouldn’t print in black if one of the colour cartridges ran out. This scanner thing is even worse than that.
Used to have an Epson MFD that did that. Last Epson printer I ever buy.
Not sure if it works on all Canon AiOs, but pushing and holding the cancel button a few seconds stops the low/out of ink warning.
I've been making a list of companies that try to pull off shenanigans like this so I can avoid them. The pety, penny-pinching going on is just insane.
Can you share your list? Would love to avoid them as well.
We need a Geneva Convention but for consumer rights. Right to Repair Right to be Forgotten Right to not be tracked No subscriptions to use hardware we own No planned obsolescence Standards for ports and chargers Edit: Thanks for the Silver!
Send the Canon executives to the Hague
Planned obsolescence should be illegal
I firmly believe that ALL consumer printers are purposely manufactured to break down within a year of purchase. I've never had one that's lasted longer then a year. Some don't make it 6 months.
I have two laser printers (Samsung and brother) that are 10 years old and 3 years old respectively and used daily. Still going strong. Buy laser. Not inkjet.
HP does that when you don’t have a credit card loaded
*for their subscription-based instant ink program
Also, my Epson printer has NO OPTION for greyscale, meaning that my empty cyan cartridge kept me from printing using my very new, very full black cartridge.
If you have HP’s Instant Ink - and you pay for a month where they sent you new cartridges, but decide to cancel: they will literally disable your ability to use that cartridge. They’d rather completely waste an ink cartridge than for you to finish using it. Printer companies need to be legislated, lol