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I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that h

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device that might, at the whim of the manufacturer, decide that the way I'm using it is not okay anymore, is probably designed to break after two years, requires me to sign up for a subscription service for ink, or whatever BS else the decision makers in this space come up with.

qwerty456127 4y ago
> I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device For printing something like once a month, it is even harder to justify wasting space by putting a printer. Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs.
- Kankuro 4y ago
  In France, some post offices have such self-service printers. I chose to go to the a self-service printer shop when I need it every few months. It minimizes resources, it limits feeding this toxic industry and it saves space on my desk.
- grishka 4y ago
  We had a machine exactly like that at my university.
- zeusk 4y ago
  > Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs. Every Fedex Print/Office center has this service. Most city libraries do as well.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    And it seems the nearest "Fedex Office Print & Ship" is 176 miles away and gets 2.7 stars. No thank you.
    - zeusk 4y ago
      Obviously, you can't expect businesses to be at every place in the world. There are 3 within 10 miles of me and I live ~30 miles from Seattle.
- viraptor 4y ago
  A lot of office equipment stores do that. For example in Australia Officeworks does that. You can even upload your bigger documents and drop in to pick up the ready result. https://www.officeworks.com.au/print-copy/info/pcc-print-and-copy-self-serve https://www.officeworks.com.au/print-copy/info/pcc-print-and...
- Majestic121 4y ago
  I don't know where you live, but such devices are pretty common at least in France : you can go to most supermarkets and print a couple pages for less than a euro. Definitely more expensive than ink+paper if you print a lot, but for my uses (couple of times a year) it's a no-brainer.
- thatguy0900 4y ago
  For what it's worth, if you have a staples nearby that's exactly what they offer. They accept emails too. I use it for my once a month printing, usually spend like 2$ on a small stack of papers.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  They are. Public libraries and places like FedEx Office do this and have for years. FedEx even has a virtual printer driver. Until my kids were a little older, I had an old HP laser printer and then one of those cheap Brother devices. Now I use a little HP mfp with instant ink… it’s essentially a worry free existence.
  - anjel 4y ago
    I was at Kinkos last month to print a us govt passport renewal application document. The document had one tiny bit of color, entirely non essential to the purpose of the document. FedEx printer will scan the print job, and if there is any color in it, will unavoidably print in color, at much higher price per page. I asked, there is no way to force it to print in mono chrome.
- jrib 4y ago
  My local library allows me to print for a few pennies per page. I need to print things so rarely and don't want a printer taking up space, so I've been using my library most of the time.
- selykg 4y ago
  UPS Stores also have this type of option. Though, depending on your print choice it is freaking costly.
- kalleboo 4y ago
  Where I live convenience stores (7-11) and most larger supermarkets have this. Basically a combo photo printer + office copier with a touchscreen and USB/memory card readers. Some of the are also loaded with postcards (for xmas cards) or even sticker paper to make your own stickers. I also like to print out A3 posters for my kids and these printers can do that, whereas I'd never buy a huge A3 printer to have at home.
  - sithadmin 4y ago
    Japan? US 7-11's absolutely do not have this service, and you're lucky if you find a grocery store that has a photo copier these days (was somewhat common in the 90s).
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      I remember this being kind of common in Dutch supermarkets, but there are no convenience stores there.
    - toast0 4y ago
      US drug stores commonly have a photoprinting area which I'd guess will do documents too. Not usually at the grocery stores or convenience stores though. There's also reprographics places and most shipping stores do printing as well. None of that is as convenient as a home printer, though. If you can get a decent color laser and lightly use it, it should treat you well for quite some time. Inkjets don't really like light use though, although I have fond memories of first page time on the ancient Deskjet 660C and 720C.
      - sithadmin 4y ago
        In my experience, US drug stores that can do document printing are the exception rather than the rule, though the self-service photo printing stations are practically universal.
  - ascagnel_ 4y ago
    Your local public library is also a good option for this. Most, if not all, libraries have publicly-accessible computers where you can either log in to your cloud storage or email to print, and some have printers that can directly read from USB devices. Some will also let you send a file to a dedicated email address, where the library staff will print the document for you, should you be concerned about using shared hardware. At my local library, prints are $0.05/page, vs. $0.15/page at my local commercial print shop.
- JasonFruit 4y ago
  Office stores have exactly like that in the Midwestern American city I live near. I like paper, so I have my own printer, but for occasional prints in 11x17 I use this and it's great. Quick, cheap, easy.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Pro-tip: Libraries.
- criddell 4y ago
  There's no way I'd ever use put that USB stick in one of my computers again.
  - exyi 4y ago
    It's not going to make a rubber ducky from it. And the age of autorun USBs is hopefully over. I think this is but too paranoid However, I'd not want to be the device manufacturer, making it secure against all kinds of USB attacks
- projektfu 4y ago
  I'd love this but I can't think of a vendor that is reliable enough to put in a minimally attended machine. Thus we have the ones in UPS stores and markets. There's been a sea change. In 2000 if you wasted time on a website for a pitch, it was a gimmick. People wanted a nicely printed, bound pitch book that they'd have in front of them at the meeting. They'd probably throw them away but one would float around for a while if you were lucky. Now people expect you to have it digitally, and don't have a place for paper.
- torpid 4y ago
  I for one, like being able to print content in the privacy of my own home without letting private companies like Fedex/Kinkos see it, and potentially filter/share it with third parties. We're already shifting towards a society where things that offer a traditional offline, anonymous way of transacting information or currency is being construed as a threat because "terrorism", aka it cannot be monitored and controlled. Easily justifiable to still have one. My dad still uses a Laserjet 4L daily to print ebay stuff and refuses to replace it because it works, and my 14 year old brother mfc, with an ipv6 stack(!) still works as good as the day I bought it. These things last generations.
  - pigeons 4y ago
    The laserjet 4L works really well.
- aceazzameen 4y ago
  Anyone remember about a decade ago when Chrome had a "Print to FedEx Kinkos" setting in the print dialog? I used that so much. It was the most convenient thing. It was only available for a year or two? Then suddenly the feature vanished and I had to go back to using USB sticks. And now these days there aren't as many locations to print as there used to be.
- yencabulator 4y ago
  ... and store copies of your private files on their hard drives for up to years. No thanks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC38D5am7go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC38D5am7go
hotpotamus 4y ago
If you print something once a month, then shouldn't the starter cartridge last for about the life of the printer (maybe a decade or so)? That's been my experience with the B&W Brother laser printer I bought about 2010. I've never changed anything on it. And really I don't find much need to print anything these days anyway.
- smcameron 4y ago
  They artificially expire on some brands.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  Toner cartridge? It should (artificial limitations notwithstanding). Ink jet? Nope, those starter packs are only enough to get you hooked on expensive replacements.
  - b112 4y ago
    Toner != ink, in printer tech speak. Toner is a dry powder, and lasts forever, and laser has no jets to block. Laser is more expensive, but is the only way to go for rare printing.
- sricks3 4y ago
  This is actually the biggest problem with my current home printer. My wife or I will print something after installing brand new ink cartridges. Then a month or two later, we try to print something again. The printer acts like it's printing (and seems to think that it's printed the document correctly), but the page comes out with little or no ink inconsistently spread around the page, as if the cartridges were empty. We finally realized the problem was that excess ink was drying up on the (outlet/spout/I'm not sure of the right term) where it's fed out of the cartridge and onto the paper. In short, *we weren't printing _enough_.* Sure enough, as long as we print a page or two a week, it keeps working properly. Also, for some reason, the "Clean print heads" function or whatever it's called doesn't resolve the issue.
  - ghaff 4y ago
colechristensen 4y ago
> I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Rent. You are effectively renting your printer, supplies are the payments. The hardware is expensive, sold cheaply, and supplies have high margins to make up for it. It is often investors forcing this model.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  I don’t think so. Nobody likes paying up front for equipment. People lease cars, which is also a bad deal. Same motivation.
  - mirekrusin 4y ago
    It’s been known since forever that printers are sold below costs to hook users.
  - TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
    I'm not convinced that leasing is a "bad deal," per se, any more.
yreg 4y ago
If you want to print something once a month you can buy a cheap printer for like €40 – which is probably subsidized because the manufacturer thinks they will earn it back on selling you overpriced ink. But they won't since you will buy a single toner and cover all of your printing needs. Anyway, I don't have a printer. I always just take my pdf and take a walk to a local printing service.
- gpvos 4y ago
  As long as it's not an inkjet printer, since the ink will dry out or the printer will just think the ink is too old after half a year or so.
  - tclancy 4y ago
    Yes! This was my plan too but I made the mistake of buying an Epson that is always “low on ink” and a PITA about third party cartridges.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    And the ink will have cost you £41.
- lm28469 4y ago
  Maximise the waste and minimise the cost, yay !
  - yreg 4y ago
    What?
    - lm28469 4y ago
      Buying a whole ass printer to dump it when the initial ink/toner is gone might be economically viable it isn't ecologically viable
danpalmer 4y ago
> I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. This is the dying gasps of an industry that is mostly irrelevant in the modern age. When I was growing up we always had a printer, and while ink wasn't cheap, it wasn't too bad, so we used it a lot and printed everything we needed. The industry grew to expect this, most households with a computer also owning a printer and regularly buying ink for it. This isn't the case anymore. So much of our lives happens "digital-only" that printers aren't needed by most people, and those who do need them don't need as much ink. I have never owned a printer myself, and my parents still own one but buy ink on a yearly basis now. The market should be shrinking naturally, and so every printer company is trying everything they possibly can to grow or at least keep from shrinking as much. In the panic they are in, it's understandable that this will lead to crappy business practices.
- pid-1 4y ago
  IDK, I'm in my mid 30s and I really can't remember printers being alright.
  - pc86 4y ago
    I am the same age as you; when we were young the printers themselves were garbage. Constantly breaking, ink cartridges drying out quickly if you weren't printing regularly. Do they still have that damn ribbon thing inside of them? I seem to remember that being a constant source of pain for 13-15 year old me. Now the printers, mechanically, seem pretty good. Some still feel cheap but not necessarily low quality. But all the firmware and software around them seems to be geared at whatever it takes to get you to spend a little more money. Stories like this one are exactly why I don't update my Brother TN-730 firmware.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      My early laser printer in 1992 was great - the LaserWriter 300.
    - copperx 4y ago
cm2187 4y ago
And the question is why competition isn’t working
- Mistletoe 4y ago
  I’m sure I’ll get a settlement for like $7 in a few decades because of printer manufacturer collusion and price fixing. Like my recent optical drive settlement.
- GuB-42 4y ago
  Because it is not profitable. Buying cheap third party consumables is a hack. It is people taking advantage of the low prices (entry level printers are often sold at a loss), without paying for the overpriced consumables that is where the real profits are. Back then, manufacturers could absorb the loss, but now, with the printer market tanking, it is becoming harder and harder. A company that decides to tolerate third party consumables is likely to attract customers who want to do exactly that, a significant loss. If they want to stay profitable, their printers will be more expensive, more than what casual users are ready to pay. I don't know about laser printers but traditional manufacturers sometimes offer an alternative to expensive ink cartridges: ink tank printers. They are way more expensive than their equivalent cartridge-based printers, but ink is sold in bulk with no DRM (cheap). These, however, are only worthwhile if you print a lot.
antihero 4y ago
I just bought the cheapest HP laser printer so I can print tickets, shipping labels, etc. Toner lasts about a year with my usage? Never had to install any crappy software because it's AirPlay. Pretty happy with it. I purchased it in August 2021 and the demo toner it came with ran out this week. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B079Z44VZ7 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B079Z44VZ7 Toner is like £40 which works out at like £3.30 a month
balabaster 4y ago
I haven't had a printer for the past 3 years and I refuse to buy one because of the disgusting economic and environmental practices of the ink mafia. Their behaviour has been beyond despicable for decades but somehow the world has just shrugged their shoulders and accepted it. I have an iPad and downloaded PDF Expert and got an Apple Pencil to sign digital documents and I've only occasionally had issues I can't get around - Amazon return labels are the biggest pain in the ass. If you're from Amazon, sort out a way we can ship returns without needing a printer!
- colejohnson66 4y ago
  You can return Amazon purchases without a printer. I've done it multiple times. You can either have them mail you a label (for $1) or take it to a UPS Store where they scan a barcode on your phone.
  - balabaster 4y ago
    In the U.S. maybe those options work, but in Canada they don't. If by chance the goods were shipped via a courier that will scan the barcode to return, that works - UPS for instance, but 90% of the time you need to print a return label because the goods aren't returned via a carrier that supports that.
    - colejohnson66 4y ago
      Ah. I was not aware you were Canadian; I was speaking about how it works in the US. My apologies.
  - tssva 4y ago
    2 other no label options sometimes available are to use an Amazon returns drop at a local Whole Foods or return to a local Kohl's store.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    Lately, they've had our regular UPS guy, doing usual deliveries, have a shipping label with him, and he just picks up the return. We put a post-it on the cardboard box to let him know that it's the box to return. I don't think you get to pick that service anywhere as such, so it might be regional or limited in some other way. When you initiate a return, you don't know whether you'll need a printer or not.
mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
> I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. There's no room left for innovation or competitive advantage. Its a commoditized market where they only make money when you buy their supplies so naturally they will engineer the product to work well with their supplies only. This might be an opportunity for open source printer components. Maybe someone can create replacement parts to take out the "brain" of a small printer and replace that with a connected Raspberry Pi that doesn't change the print quality or reject 3rd party cartridges. I know there's likely a lot of settings in the software for head movement, ink usage, etc. so that might take some (possibly illegal?) reverse engineering. I'm a web software person so that idea may sound stupid to someone more knowledgeable.
- christophilus 4y ago
  > There's no room left for innovation or competitive advantage. What? A hackable, OSS printer whose manufacturer puts time and effort into reducing waste and creating the best, longest lasting ink on the planet would crush it. Well, maybe not. But anytime anyone has said: “That’s it. There’s nothing more to do here.” It tells me there’s a complacent market ripe for disruption.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    > A hackable, OSS printer Outside of our bubble nobody cares about that There is always something you can do, we see it with phones, just add more gimmicks on top, the thing is smartphones are aimed at the general population and became a fashion/class/status symbol. Printers are just printers, they work just fine and most of them are used in pro environment (aka most people don't pay, maintain or replace printers). > It tells me there’s a complacent market ripe for disruption. Then let's disrupt coffee mugs, or the wheel... some techs are good enough that further """progress""" isn't required. Most people who have issues with printers buy cheap ones and/or use them once every 6 months, they then proceed to complain that they don't work anymore and that all printers are bad. It's like buying a car and never doing any maintenance until it dies and then complain about reliability.
hyperdimension 4y ago
I agree. It's so hard to recommend printers to family and friends now. It seems they all suck in their own very special way. The only reason I even have a printer is that I happened to find an old LaserJet for 10$ at my local thrift store. It was "broken" but all i had to do was oil the laser scanner motor. Right era of printer, toner cartridges are only around 20$, and I put in a JetDirect card. Only thing is the memory is a bit lacking, even being fully upgraded, so for complex documents it sometimes will pause between pages. I definitely wouldn't have bought a printer new today.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  +10 to this. Old monochrome laserprinters are the way to go. Amd a very good case for anti e-waste laws and right to repair. Never throw out a serviceable laser printer. All my printing is via a 15 year old desktop mini laser printer rescued from a dump. It's been worth locating a printer engineering company to service it. Most of the time it sits idle in a clean, dry cupboard. When I print it's usually a whole document for marking, so it's worth the bother of getting it out, plugging it in and running one print job. Ink-jets, and that whole market is a failed technology in my book, not for technical reasons, but because the vendors have turned every product into toxic crap.
pndy 4y ago
> at the whim of the manufacturer I've seen a clip on the Internet where printer rolls a customer satisfaction survey during printing on a little screen panel locking its features away. I'm afraid that once my Samsung laser printer will be broken beyond any repair I won't have any other choice than to get the one of the newest anti-customer devices that will maneuver me into "supplies as a service" scenario.
0xcde4c3db 4y ago
I think it boils down to companies finding legal ways of artificially lowering the baseline price signal that they send into highly price-sensitive markets. Similar phenomena in this sense include phone/DSL/cable plans that don't include various fees in the advertised price, the "sticker price" of a new car, smart TVs not mentioning that they're going to show you ads, and so on.
- yencabulator 4y ago
  This is something Europe has been able to outlaw. US should really do the same.
cmsonger 4y ago
IMO, this is a byproduct of capitalism. Do you own Brother stock? (Don't even know if Brother is public.) If you own Brother stock, then you care about the stock price. I'm guessing Brother executives compensation is related to Brother stock price. Markets price in profit growth. Printing has long ago progressed to the point that further improvements are not needed for the human eye -- so Brother can hardly make more money by making a better printer. It's why industries need to be regulated. A company run for shareholder value is going to maximize profits and externalize costs. This class of behavior is not at all unique to this product segment or this industry. You think this is annoying? Gonna be somewhere between interesting to horrifying to see what big tech does if the profit growth flags.
mc_woods 4y ago
Public buy printers. Good printers last a long time. Printer company offers online services (drivers / patches / APIs - see original post) which have on gong cost. But revenue stops after printer is sold. Printer company's remaining income is ink, ink sales undercut. Printer company goes bust. Printer company, who make printer, force you to use their ink. Printer company does not go bust. Alternative (game console model) printer company license right to make ink for printer. Printer company does not go bust. Cost of printer is printer + driver + server over life time of printer... what the public pay; a single one time purchase price.... model doesn't work.
- _JamesA_ 4y ago
  > drivers / patches / APIs It's a shame there aren't any open standards like lpd, jetdirect, postscript, and pcl for printers. /s The printer business model has been abused for a long time in an effort to squeeze every last dime out of the market.
  - davoneus 4y ago
    I'd argue there is one, and it's been around a surprisingly long time: Internet Printing Protocol. <insert XKCD reference here> I've had to dig into this a fair bit at work, and it's rather amazing. Certainly not perfect, but basically printers which are certified for IPP Everywhere (Mopria for Android, Airprint for Apple) are required to have built-in format support for a set of given formats. For example, Mopria certification requires PCLm (a backwards-compatible subset of PDF, designed for streaming), PWG Raster and PDF. IPP Everywhere mandates PWG Raster, JPEG and PDF. Of course Apple being Apple, they have their own Raster format (urf). The printers can support more (and typically do), but they have to include the base. Also the formats (and capabilities) the printers support can be queried via standard IPP. (*) That sounds complex, but it means that as long as the printer supports any of those standards, you have a good chance of printing to it). I've printed to some pretty strange, limited printers via IPP, and had surprisingly good luck doing so (mostly via raster-urf). Apparently in Linux CUPS is going this way completely, and has recently added built-in on-the-fly conversion. So CUPS will query the printer, and then send documents in whatever format the printer supports. If it's an AirPrint certified printer, then it'll send raster-urf; if it's IPP Everywhere it might send PWG-Raster or PDF. Certainly not perfect (as my testing has shown), but it's a heck of a lot better than what we had before. And I've heard that they now have a standard for 3D printing (3MF*) aiming to replace STL. Apparently developed with the Linux Foundation. I have no personal experience with it, but with the complexity of 3D printing, I'd not be surprised if it's still immature. (*) https://openprinting.github.io/driverless/01-standards-and-their-pdls/ https://openprinting.github.io/driverless/01-standards-and-t... (**) https://www.pwg.org/3d/ https://www.pwg.org/3d/
xadhominemx 4y ago
Low end printers are sold at a loss. Manufacturers must sell OEM ink/toner to make a profit. If you do not what to purchase expensive OEM ink/toner, there are many ink tank type printers available. Those printers are sold at a profit because replacement ink is sold at essentially no profit.
masswerk 4y ago
> I would like to own a printer again Just as a thought experiment, what about the other way round, where you could only rent a printer, fully serviced, as an appliance? Surely, this kind of business wouldn't be sustainable with this kind of tech with consumables running out every now and then, things breaking at any possible instance, non-replaceable consumables, etc. Follows, in addition to all this vendors are off-loading considerable hassles onto the "customer" (or rather, those who have no way around these offerings) to enable this scheme. Suggested title for a fictitious article on the matter, "If the IBM 1401 had been built like a modern printer".
grogenaut 4y ago
If you're using it for documents just get a laser printer. I have a brother laser sitting next to me. I bought a replacement toner when I got it 7 years ago. I'm 10% into the first toner cartridge. It doesn't really go bad either and the toner is reasonable. It also prints super fast and reliably. For real world prints I just go to walgreens or now more likely to use a digital frame. My mom with memory issues LOVES her digital frame even more than photo albums as she can sit there watching it rotate through her memories. She has boxes of albums in her room but forgets they're there.
clint 4y ago
Its because American consumers value cheapness over everything else and American corporations value profit over anything else. Setting aside the general decline of the printer industry, and simplifying slightly, those two interests compliment each other into: 1. Producing the cheapest possible product, and then selling it for a loss while concocting subscription schemes to make-up for the lost profits at the point of sale of the product. 2. Paying employees in general less and less money proportional to inflation to "reduce costs", thus forcing the average person to demand cheaper and cheaper products. Completing the cycle.
- neuralRiot 4y ago
  This. Everybody wants quality products that last forever but they will go with the cheapest POS they find and then complain that nobody makes quality products anymore.
zbuf 4y ago
They just don't get it... It's never been easier to _not_ print things.

qwerty456127 4y ago

> I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device For printing something like once a month, it is even harder to justify wasting space by putting a printer. Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs.

Kankuro 4y ago
In France, some post offices have such self-service printers. I chose to go to the a self-service printer shop when I need it every few months. It minimizes resources, it limits feeding this toxic industry and it saves space on my desk.
grishka 4y ago
We had a machine exactly like that at my university.
zeusk 4y ago
> Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs. Every Fedex Print/Office center has this service. Most city libraries do as well.
- yencabulator 4y ago
  And it seems the nearest "Fedex Office Print & Ship" is 176 miles away and gets 2.7 stars. No thank you.
  - zeusk 4y ago
    Obviously, you can't expect businesses to be at every place in the world. There are 3 within 10 miles of me and I live ~30 miles from Seattle.
viraptor 4y ago
A lot of office equipment stores do that. For example in Australia Officeworks does that. You can even upload your bigger documents and drop in to pick up the ready result. https://www.officeworks.com.au/print-copy/info/pcc-print-and-copy-self-serve https://www.officeworks.com.au/print-copy/info/pcc-print-and...
Majestic121 4y ago
I don't know where you live, but such devices are pretty common at least in France : you can go to most supermarkets and print a couple pages for less than a euro. Definitely more expensive than ink+paper if you print a lot, but for my uses (couple of times a year) it's a no-brainer.
thatguy0900 4y ago
For what it's worth, if you have a staples nearby that's exactly what they offer. They accept emails too. I use it for my once a month printing, usually spend like 2$ on a small stack of papers.
Spooky23 4y ago
They are. Public libraries and places like FedEx Office do this and have for years. FedEx even has a virtual printer driver. Until my kids were a little older, I had an old HP laser printer and then one of those cheap Brother devices. Now I use a little HP mfp with instant ink… it’s essentially a worry free existence.
- anjel 4y ago
  I was at Kinkos last month to print a us govt passport renewal application document. The document had one tiny bit of color, entirely non essential to the purpose of the document. FedEx printer will scan the print job, and if there is any color in it, will unavoidably print in color, at much higher price per page. I asked, there is no way to force it to print in mono chrome.
jrib 4y ago
My local library allows me to print for a few pennies per page. I need to print things so rarely and don't want a printer taking up space, so I've been using my library most of the time.
selykg 4y ago
UPS Stores also have this type of option. Though, depending on your print choice it is freaking costly.
kalleboo 4y ago
Where I live convenience stores (7-11) and most larger supermarkets have this. Basically a combo photo printer + office copier with a touchscreen and USB/memory card readers. Some of the are also loaded with postcards (for xmas cards) or even sticker paper to make your own stickers. I also like to print out A3 posters for my kids and these printers can do that, whereas I'd never buy a huge A3 printer to have at home.
- sithadmin 4y ago
  Japan? US 7-11's absolutely do not have this service, and you're lucky if you find a grocery store that has a photo copier these days (was somewhat common in the 90s).
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    I remember this being kind of common in Dutch supermarkets, but there are no convenience stores there.
  - toast0 4y ago
    US drug stores commonly have a photoprinting area which I'd guess will do documents too. Not usually at the grocery stores or convenience stores though. There's also reprographics places and most shipping stores do printing as well. None of that is as convenient as a home printer, though. If you can get a decent color laser and lightly use it, it should treat you well for quite some time. Inkjets don't really like light use though, although I have fond memories of first page time on the ancient Deskjet 660C and 720C.
    - sithadmin 4y ago
      In my experience, US drug stores that can do document printing are the exception rather than the rule, though the self-service photo printing stations are practically universal.
- ascagnel_ 4y ago
  Your local public library is also a good option for this. Most, if not all, libraries have publicly-accessible computers where you can either log in to your cloud storage or email to print, and some have printers that can directly read from USB devices. Some will also let you send a file to a dedicated email address, where the library staff will print the document for you, should you be concerned about using shared hardware. At my local library, prints are $0.05/page, vs. $0.15/page at my local commercial print shop.
JasonFruit 4y ago
Office stores have exactly like that in the Midwestern American city I live near. I like paper, so I have my own printer, but for occasional prints in 11x17 I use this and it's great. Quick, cheap, easy.
guerrilla 4y ago
Pro-tip: Libraries.
criddell 4y ago
There's no way I'd ever use put that USB stick in one of my computers again.
- exyi 4y ago
  It's not going to make a rubber ducky from it. And the age of autorun USBs is hopefully over. I think this is but too paranoid However, I'd not want to be the device manufacturer, making it secure against all kinds of USB attacks
projektfu 4y ago
I'd love this but I can't think of a vendor that is reliable enough to put in a minimally attended machine. Thus we have the ones in UPS stores and markets. There's been a sea change. In 2000 if you wasted time on a website for a pitch, it was a gimmick. People wanted a nicely printed, bound pitch book that they'd have in front of them at the meeting. They'd probably throw them away but one would float around for a while if you were lucky. Now people expect you to have it digitally, and don't have a place for paper.
torpid 4y ago
I for one, like being able to print content in the privacy of my own home without letting private companies like Fedex/Kinkos see it, and potentially filter/share it with third parties. We're already shifting towards a society where things that offer a traditional offline, anonymous way of transacting information or currency is being construed as a threat because "terrorism", aka it cannot be monitored and controlled. Easily justifiable to still have one. My dad still uses a Laserjet 4L daily to print ebay stuff and refuses to replace it because it works, and my 14 year old brother mfc, with an ipv6 stack(!) still works as good as the day I bought it. These things last generations.
- pigeons 4y ago
  The laserjet 4L works really well.
aceazzameen 4y ago
Anyone remember about a decade ago when Chrome had a "Print to FedEx Kinkos" setting in the print dialog? I used that so much. It was the most convenient thing. It was only available for a year or two? Then suddenly the feature vanished and I had to go back to using USB sticks. And now these days there aren't as many locations to print as there used to be.
yencabulator 4y ago
... and store copies of your private files on their hard drives for up to years. No thanks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC38D5am7go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC38D5am7go

hotpotamus 4y ago

If you print something once a month, then shouldn't the starter cartridge last for about the life of the printer (maybe a decade or so)? That's been my experience with the B&W Brother laser printer I bought about 2010. I've never changed anything on it. And really I don't find much need to print anything these days anyway.

smcameron 4y ago
They artificially expire on some brands.
alistairSH 4y ago
Toner cartridge? It should (artificial limitations notwithstanding). Ink jet? Nope, those starter packs are only enough to get you hooked on expensive replacements.
- b112 4y ago
  Toner != ink, in printer tech speak. Toner is a dry powder, and lasts forever, and laser has no jets to block. Laser is more expensive, but is the only way to go for rare printing.
sricks3 4y ago
This is actually the biggest problem with my current home printer. My wife or I will print something after installing brand new ink cartridges. Then a month or two later, we try to print something again. The printer acts like it's printing (and seems to think that it's printed the document correctly), but the page comes out with little or no ink inconsistently spread around the page, as if the cartridges were empty. We finally realized the problem was that excess ink was drying up on the (outlet/spout/I'm not sure of the right term) where it's fed out of the cartridge and onto the paper. In short, *we weren't printing _enough_.* Sure enough, as long as we print a page or two a week, it keeps working properly. Also, for some reason, the "Clean print heads" function or whatever it's called doesn't resolve the issue.
- ghaff 4y ago

colechristensen 4y ago

> I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Rent. You are effectively renting your printer, supplies are the payments. The hardware is expensive, sold cheaply, and supplies have high margins to make up for it. It is often investors forcing this model.

Spooky23 4y ago
I don’t think so. Nobody likes paying up front for equipment. People lease cars, which is also a bad deal. Same motivation.
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  It’s been known since forever that printers are sold below costs to hook users.
- TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
  I'm not convinced that leasing is a "bad deal," per se, any more.

yreg 4y ago

If you want to print something once a month you can buy a cheap printer for like €40 – which is probably subsidized because the manufacturer thinks they will earn it back on selling you overpriced ink. But they won't since you will buy a single toner and cover all of your printing needs. Anyway, I don't have a printer. I always just take my pdf and take a walk to a local printing service.

gpvos 4y ago
As long as it's not an inkjet printer, since the ink will dry out or the printer will just think the ink is too old after half a year or so.
- tclancy 4y ago
  Yes! This was my plan too but I made the mistake of buying an Epson that is always “low on ink” and a PITA about third party cartridges.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  And the ink will have cost you £41.
lm28469 4y ago
Maximise the waste and minimise the cost, yay !
- yreg 4y ago
  What?
  - lm28469 4y ago
    Buying a whole ass printer to dump it when the initial ink/toner is gone might be economically viable it isn't ecologically viable

danpalmer 4y ago

> I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. This is the dying gasps of an industry that is mostly irrelevant in the modern age. When I was growing up we always had a printer, and while ink wasn't cheap, it wasn't too bad, so we used it a lot and printed everything we needed. The industry grew to expect this, most households with a computer also owning a printer and regularly buying ink for it. This isn't the case anymore. So much of our lives happens "digital-only" that printers aren't needed by most people, and those who do need them don't need as much ink. I have never owned a printer myself, and my parents still own one but buy ink on a yearly basis now. The market should be shrinking naturally, and so every printer company is trying everything they possibly can to grow or at least keep from shrinking as much. In the panic they are in, it's understandable that this will lead to crappy business practices.

pid-1 4y ago
IDK, I'm in my mid 30s and I really can't remember printers being alright.
- pc86 4y ago
  I am the same age as you; when we were young the printers themselves were garbage. Constantly breaking, ink cartridges drying out quickly if you weren't printing regularly. Do they still have that damn ribbon thing inside of them? I seem to remember that being a constant source of pain for 13-15 year old me. Now the printers, mechanically, seem pretty good. Some still feel cheap but not necessarily low quality. But all the firmware and software around them seems to be geared at whatever it takes to get you to spend a little more money. Stories like this one are exactly why I don't update my Brother TN-730 firmware.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    My early laser printer in 1992 was great - the LaserWriter 300.
  - copperx 4y ago

cm2187 4y ago

And the question is why competition isn’t working

Mistletoe 4y ago
I’m sure I’ll get a settlement for like $7 in a few decades because of printer manufacturer collusion and price fixing. Like my recent optical drive settlement.
GuB-42 4y ago
Because it is not profitable. Buying cheap third party consumables is a hack. It is people taking advantage of the low prices (entry level printers are often sold at a loss), without paying for the overpriced consumables that is where the real profits are. Back then, manufacturers could absorb the loss, but now, with the printer market tanking, it is becoming harder and harder. A company that decides to tolerate third party consumables is likely to attract customers who want to do exactly that, a significant loss. If they want to stay profitable, their printers will be more expensive, more than what casual users are ready to pay. I don't know about laser printers but traditional manufacturers sometimes offer an alternative to expensive ink cartridges: ink tank printers. They are way more expensive than their equivalent cartridge-based printers, but ink is sold in bulk with no DRM (cheap). These, however, are only worthwhile if you print a lot.

antihero 4y ago

I just bought the cheapest HP laser printer so I can print tickets, shipping labels, etc. Toner lasts about a year with my usage? Never had to install any crappy software because it's AirPlay. Pretty happy with it. I purchased it in August 2021 and the demo toner it came with ran out this week. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B079Z44VZ7 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B079Z44VZ7 Toner is like £40 which works out at like £3.30 a month

balabaster 4y ago

I haven't had a printer for the past 3 years and I refuse to buy one because of the disgusting economic and environmental practices of the ink mafia. Their behaviour has been beyond despicable for decades but somehow the world has just shrugged their shoulders and accepted it. I have an iPad and downloaded PDF Expert and got an Apple Pencil to sign digital documents and I've only occasionally had issues I can't get around - Amazon return labels are the biggest pain in the ass. If you're from Amazon, sort out a way we can ship returns without needing a printer!

colejohnson66 4y ago
You can return Amazon purchases without a printer. I've done it multiple times. You can either have them mail you a label (for $1) or take it to a UPS Store where they scan a barcode on your phone.
- balabaster 4y ago
  In the U.S. maybe those options work, but in Canada they don't. If by chance the goods were shipped via a courier that will scan the barcode to return, that works - UPS for instance, but 90% of the time you need to print a return label because the goods aren't returned via a carrier that supports that.
  - colejohnson66 4y ago
    Ah. I was not aware you were Canadian; I was speaking about how it works in the US. My apologies.
- tssva 4y ago
  2 other no label options sometimes available are to use an Amazon returns drop at a local Whole Foods or return to a local Kohl's store.
- yencabulator 4y ago
  Lately, they've had our regular UPS guy, doing usual deliveries, have a shipping label with him, and he just picks up the return. We put a post-it on the cardboard box to let him know that it's the box to return. I don't think you get to pick that service anywhere as such, so it might be regional or limited in some other way. When you initiate a return, you don't know whether you'll need a printer or not.

mattbrewsbytes 4y ago

> I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. There's no room left for innovation or competitive advantage. Its a commoditized market where they only make money when you buy their supplies so naturally they will engineer the product to work well with their supplies only. This might be an opportunity for open source printer components. Maybe someone can create replacement parts to take out the "brain" of a small printer and replace that with a connected Raspberry Pi that doesn't change the print quality or reject 3rd party cartridges. I know there's likely a lot of settings in the software for head movement, ink usage, etc. so that might take some (possibly illegal?) reverse engineering. I'm a web software person so that idea may sound stupid to someone more knowledgeable.

christophilus 4y ago
> There's no room left for innovation or competitive advantage. What? A hackable, OSS printer whose manufacturer puts time and effort into reducing waste and creating the best, longest lasting ink on the planet would crush it. Well, maybe not. But anytime anyone has said: “That’s it. There’s nothing more to do here.” It tells me there’s a complacent market ripe for disruption.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > A hackable, OSS printer Outside of our bubble nobody cares about that There is always something you can do, we see it with phones, just add more gimmicks on top, the thing is smartphones are aimed at the general population and became a fashion/class/status symbol. Printers are just printers, they work just fine and most of them are used in pro environment (aka most people don't pay, maintain or replace printers). > It tells me there’s a complacent market ripe for disruption. Then let's disrupt coffee mugs, or the wheel... some techs are good enough that further """progress""" isn't required. Most people who have issues with printers buy cheap ones and/or use them once every 6 months, they then proceed to complain that they don't work anymore and that all printers are bad. It's like buying a car and never doing any maintenance until it dies and then complain about reliability.

hyperdimension 4y ago

I agree. It's so hard to recommend printers to family and friends now. It seems they all suck in their own very special way. The only reason I even have a printer is that I happened to find an old LaserJet for 10$ at my local thrift store. It was "broken" but all i had to do was oil the laser scanner motor. Right era of printer, toner cartridges are only around 20$, and I put in a JetDirect card. Only thing is the memory is a bit lacking, even being fully upgraded, so for complex documents it sometimes will pause between pages. I definitely wouldn't have bought a printer new today.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
+10 to this. Old monochrome laserprinters are the way to go. Amd a very good case for anti e-waste laws and right to repair. Never throw out a serviceable laser printer. All my printing is via a 15 year old desktop mini laser printer rescued from a dump. It's been worth locating a printer engineering company to service it. Most of the time it sits idle in a clean, dry cupboard. When I print it's usually a whole document for marking, so it's worth the bother of getting it out, plugging it in and running one print job. Ink-jets, and that whole market is a failed technology in my book, not for technical reasons, but because the vendors have turned every product into toxic crap.

pndy 4y ago

> at the whim of the manufacturer I've seen a clip on the Internet where printer rolls a customer satisfaction survey during printing on a little screen panel locking its features away. I'm afraid that once my Samsung laser printer will be broken beyond any repair I won't have any other choice than to get the one of the newest anti-customer devices that will maneuver me into "supplies as a service" scenario.

0xcde4c3db 4y ago

I think it boils down to companies finding legal ways of artificially lowering the baseline price signal that they send into highly price-sensitive markets. Similar phenomena in this sense include phone/DSL/cable plans that don't include various fees in the advertised price, the "sticker price" of a new car, smart TVs not mentioning that they're going to show you ads, and so on.

yencabulator 4y ago
This is something Europe has been able to outlaw. US should really do the same.

cmsonger 4y ago

IMO, this is a byproduct of capitalism. Do you own Brother stock? (Don't even know if Brother is public.) If you own Brother stock, then you care about the stock price. I'm guessing Brother executives compensation is related to Brother stock price. Markets price in profit growth. Printing has long ago progressed to the point that further improvements are not needed for the human eye -- so Brother can hardly make more money by making a better printer. It's why industries need to be regulated. A company run for shareholder value is going to maximize profits and externalize costs. This class of behavior is not at all unique to this product segment or this industry. You think this is annoying? Gonna be somewhere between interesting to horrifying to see what big tech does if the profit growth flags.

mc_woods 4y ago

Public buy printers. Good printers last a long time. Printer company offers online services (drivers / patches / APIs - see original post) which have on gong cost. But revenue stops after printer is sold. Printer company's remaining income is ink, ink sales undercut. Printer company goes bust. Printer company, who make printer, force you to use their ink. Printer company does not go bust. Alternative (game console model) printer company license right to make ink for printer. Printer company does not go bust. Cost of printer is printer + driver + server over life time of printer... what the public pay; a single one time purchase price.... model doesn't work.

_JamesA_ 4y ago
> drivers / patches / APIs It's a shame there aren't any open standards like lpd, jetdirect, postscript, and pcl for printers. /s The printer business model has been abused for a long time in an effort to squeeze every last dime out of the market.
- davoneus 4y ago
  I'd argue there is one, and it's been around a surprisingly long time: Internet Printing Protocol. <insert XKCD reference here> I've had to dig into this a fair bit at work, and it's rather amazing. Certainly not perfect, but basically printers which are certified for IPP Everywhere (Mopria for Android, Airprint for Apple) are required to have built-in format support for a set of given formats. For example, Mopria certification requires PCLm (a backwards-compatible subset of PDF, designed for streaming), PWG Raster and PDF. IPP Everywhere mandates PWG Raster, JPEG and PDF. Of course Apple being Apple, they have their own Raster format (urf). The printers can support more (and typically do), but they have to include the base. Also the formats (and capabilities) the printers support can be queried via standard IPP. (*) That sounds complex, but it means that as long as the printer supports any of those standards, you have a good chance of printing to it). I've printed to some pretty strange, limited printers via IPP, and had surprisingly good luck doing so (mostly via raster-urf). Apparently in Linux CUPS is going this way completely, and has recently added built-in on-the-fly conversion. So CUPS will query the printer, and then send documents in whatever format the printer supports. If it's an AirPrint certified printer, then it'll send raster-urf; if it's IPP Everywhere it might send PWG-Raster or PDF. Certainly not perfect (as my testing has shown), but it's a heck of a lot better than what we had before. And I've heard that they now have a standard for 3D printing (3MF*) aiming to replace STL. Apparently developed with the Linux Foundation. I have no personal experience with it, but with the complexity of 3D printing, I'd not be surprised if it's still immature. (*) https://openprinting.github.io/driverless/01-standards-and-their-pdls/ https://openprinting.github.io/driverless/01-standards-and-t... (**) https://www.pwg.org/3d/ https://www.pwg.org/3d/

xadhominemx 4y ago

Low end printers are sold at a loss. Manufacturers must sell OEM ink/toner to make a profit. If you do not what to purchase expensive OEM ink/toner, there are many ink tank type printers available. Those printers are sold at a profit because replacement ink is sold at essentially no profit.

masswerk 4y ago

> I would like to own a printer again Just as a thought experiment, what about the other way round, where you could only rent a printer, fully serviced, as an appliance? Surely, this kind of business wouldn't be sustainable with this kind of tech with consumables running out every now and then, things breaking at any possible instance, non-replaceable consumables, etc. Follows, in addition to all this vendors are off-loading considerable hassles onto the "customer" (or rather, those who have no way around these offerings) to enable this scheme. Suggested title for a fictitious article on the matter, "If the IBM 1401 had been built like a modern printer".

grogenaut 4y ago

If you're using it for documents just get a laser printer. I have a brother laser sitting next to me. I bought a replacement toner when I got it 7 years ago. I'm 10% into the first toner cartridge. It doesn't really go bad either and the toner is reasonable. It also prints super fast and reliably. For real world prints I just go to walgreens or now more likely to use a digital frame. My mom with memory issues LOVES her digital frame even more than photo albums as she can sit there watching it rotate through her memories. She has boxes of albums in her room but forgets they're there.

clint 4y ago

Its because American consumers value cheapness over everything else and American corporations value profit over anything else. Setting aside the general decline of the printer industry, and simplifying slightly, those two interests compliment each other into: 1. Producing the cheapest possible product, and then selling it for a loss while concocting subscription schemes to make-up for the lost profits at the point of sale of the product. 2. Paying employees in general less and less money proportional to inflation to "reduce costs", thus forcing the average person to demand cheaper and cheaper products. Completing the cycle.

neuralRiot 4y ago
This. Everybody wants quality products that last forever but they will go with the cheapest POS they find and then complain that nobody makes quality products anymore.

zbuf 4y ago

They just don't get it... It's never been easier to _not_ print things.