> many printer makers till ship drivers for no obvious reason The reason is pretty obvious to me. It's so that the "driver" software can the serve as an ad for

> many printer makers till ship drivers for no obvious reason The reason is pretty obvious to me. It's so that the "driver" software can the serve as an ad for the vendor, try to sell you overpriced consumables, surveil you and try to trick you into installing shovelware, malware, trial versions of software, etc. It has nothing at all to do with making the operating system be able to talk to the printer.