6 ms·

I think printers are a nice example of "Tragedy of the Anticommons" [1] or maybe a fine example of enshittification [2] where all printer producers are equally

• andy_ppp 3y ago
  My brother Laser printer still works great after 5 years or more, I think MacOS got a lot worse at printing to it though in the last major version... I have to remove the printer, reboot and re-add it most times. Or I just print from my phone which always works.
  • RobotToaster 3y ago
    Brother started locking out third party cartridges by firmware updates apparently.
    • dryanau 3y ago
      I've experienced this. My $500 MFC is a brick unless I go out and purchase a genuine Brother toner, despite having spent several hundred dollars on a stash of generics. At some point they just stopped working. And just to be clear: they didn't just disable the printer; I can't even use the scanner on top unless I go and buy the Brother toners. Screw Brother. I'm tired of reading that they're "the one good brand" out there. They are very not.
      • JKCalhoun 3y ago
        They were.
        • lostlogin 3y ago
          I buy Brother Laser as they used to be good.
          • hilbert42 3y ago
            That was once upon a time long, long ago!
      • TacticalCoder 3y ago
        > Screw Brother. I'm tired of reading that they're "the one good brand" out there. They are very not. OK but is there any other alternative? Wife's SME: two Brother printers (these are with official support for everything although I did have to modify a few settings here or there when they moved office and their router IP changed for example). Home number one: Brother printer. Home number two: Brother printer. It's really pathetic if they started preventing other toners from working but they're still fine machines. What would I replace our four Brother laser printers with? Basically I read your post and Brother "won": I'll just make sure to buy official Brother toners. Which sucks.
        • msravi 3y ago
          Canon, I guess? The Canon MF4150 that I bought some 15 years ago is still humming along well, and doesn't mind using third-party toners. No idea how they are now though.
      • singleshot_ 3y ago
        Strongly agree. I upgraded my Mac and it resulted in my brother mfc losing the ability to scan from the mac. It seems brother did not port the driver to the new OS. Accordingly, they are dirt and I will not buy from them again.
    • branon 3y ago
      Also a satisfied Brother laser printer user. I have the unit blocked in my router so it can't surreptitiously update its firmware and start doing this. I always buy the Brother toner cartridges because they're the best quality, reasonably priced, and I want to support the business model of the only(?) decent printer manufacturer left. All of this said, if I found out the printer was locking out third-party toner cartridges, I'd stop at nothing to defeat the lock, and would only use knockoff toner from then on. It's an honor system through and through, I hope somebody in charge takes note.
      • PNewling 3y ago
        >I have the unit blocked in my router so it can't surreptitiously update its firmware and start doing this. Maybe this is a silly question, but how do you do this without blocking wifi printing? Are you just stopping network egress from the printers IP address? Edit - by wifi printing I mean on the same network, in house.
        • lr1970 3y ago
          > >I have the unit blocked in my router so it can't surreptitiously update its firmware and start doing this. > Maybe this is a silly question, but how do you do this without blocking wifi printing? Are you just stopping network egress from the printers IP address? > Edit - by wifi printing I mean on the same network, in house. I can guess that their routing table only allows routing from/to the printer's IP in the local network (wired or wireless). Any packet to/from outside world for the printer is dropped.
        • branon 3y ago
          Only traffic headed towards the router's WAN interface is dropped, LAN communication is allowed unfettered. In my opinion there's never any reason a home office printer with one or two users should need to talk to the Internet.
    • JKCalhoun 3y ago
      Yes, and as with HP, the secret appears to be, buy used. I too have an old Brother that I keep around. Some years back I bought an HP on eBay that was at least 5 years old at the time — it was a model that the 3rd party toner companies had figured out how to hack. In fact, that is generally my suggestion: to determine which used printer to shop for, find the ink/toner cartridges that are in abundance and see which models they work with. I suppose software support is the only danger of this (although it has not bitten me yet). But I believe there are perhaps open-source or 3rd party solutions here?
  • hayley-patton 3y ago
    Mine has a dodgy power connection somehow, and will refuse to turn on most of the time (depending on star alignment and where it was plugged in). Maybe if I could remove the power cable, I could check if that's the issue. Okay, I guess anything's removable if you try hard enough.
  • xtracto 3y ago
    I have a very small and simple Samsung laser printer I think I bought it 9 years ago. It's been amazing for the odd printout I do every year. No dry ink, fast and no frills connecting it to any OS through USB. I should use my arduino one to make some sort of printer server.
    • skeeter2020 3y ago
      I have an HP 1200 laserjet (b&w) that's 24 years old. The biggest problem is the parallel port interface but it's still the family printer. Not sure what we'll do when it dies...
    • wesapien 3y ago
      I have the same experience with Samsung printers. It's the most reliable and it's multi-funtion M2875FW. Works with generic toners.
    • Wistar 3y ago
      I also have a straightforward Samsung laser from about 2016 or so. It is the only laser printer I know about that has the capability, and specific settings, to print on a range of paper weights, including heavier stock. It has been dead reliable but, a few years ago, the toner cartridges became hard to get and tripled in price from about $36 to over $100. Third party cartridges that I tried don’t work nearly as well or last nearly as long as the Samsung toner. I stopped using it and it now sits in a closet.
• agumonkey 3y ago
  To me it's not lack of competition, probably the opposite, with a loss-of-value effect. People don't value printers anymore so if <brand> sells a 50 bucks printer.. they won't buy HP 200 bucks printer.. now HP doesn't pay their R&D anymore and start producing cheap models with more bloatware and tries to make money on ink. It was surprising how complex cheap printers are compared to prosumer models where things are like lego. Nicely modularized, few pluggable blocks, clean and simple where as entry level ones use the same old design with tons of parts, screws and plastic clipping..
• Arch-TK 3y ago
  >And if you do manage to live, your shareholders will force you to squeeze more juice out of your loyal customers. Always use protection kids, don't catch shareholders.
• nazka 3y ago
  It’s not because of a lack of competition but because of a lack of better patent laws. It is today near impossible to create a new printer without hitting any of the thousands patents (mines) that HP (and others) have. HP is not breaking any antitrust laws since technically they are not abusing their power against the market and against competitors ~directly~, so they do not break antitrust law. But they do it through abusing patents laws. Technically they are doing everything the law says… HP hold the guns and if you dare compete good luck not infringing any of their patents and get sued. They love the cash cow it creates, the security their parents provides against competition and antitrust laws, and the lack of innovation and having to spend more money on R&D is fine for them. If you sue them for breaking antitrust law they will show you how they don’t and how you are free to create your own printer company. But in reality again good luck not hitting any of their patents. Patent laws are quite broken and will be for a long time. We need to change them.
  • gruez 3y ago
    Patents only last 20 years. Laser printers have been around for way longer than that. What's preventing someone from making printers with 2000s technology?
    • ISL 3y ago
      A LaserJet 4mp with a USB interface is all many people need. Bonus points for wifi printing.
      • hilbert42 3y ago
        My LaserJet III still works! It's been rapidly downhill ever since.
        • nebula8804 3y ago
          I don't get why people still advise the use of this junk. Are they really that ignorant of normal peoples use cases? The processors and memory capacity on these things are so antiquated that unless you are printing text in a font that is onboard the printer you are waiting forever for it to "process" the document and then fail because it ran out of ram to be able to fit the page to draw it on to the drum. Once you get the document processed and into ram, you are then waiting even longer because these printers actually have slow print speed. All so you can save on some cheap toner and have some sort of perceived "reliability". Its like those people who tell everyone to just use Linux. Yeah use it...if your time is worth nothing.
• xtracto 3y ago
  I just recently wanted to print a 250 pages pdf "book" that we did for my grandma with her recipes. we wanted to print all pages in color but oh my god, printing services were EXTREMELY expensive at around $0.70 usd per page!! It would have costed more than $150 to print the whole thing. Then I looked at self printing. Buying an inkjet and 1 set of ink carts was like $130. Even if I borrowed the printer, the ink was VERY expensive. It is 2023... printing pages should be extremely cheap both in color and b&w. Why hasn't there been innovation in that front?
  • elorant 3y ago
    There has been innovation. Epson marketed new inkjets that take liquid ink which is quite cheap. Something like $10 per bottle which can last for thousands of pages. Perhaps you should check them out. The line-up is called "ink tank". Other manufacturers have followed suit with similar products.
    • scrlk 3y ago
      Third party companies were producing retrofit continuous ink systems years before the printer manufacturers introduced introduced ink tank printers. With ink tank printers, you pay extra to escape the "razor and blades" pricing model. Probably worth it if you print sufficient volume using an inkjet.
  • Palomides 3y ago
    you've been spoiled by moore's law, most physical goods can't become 1000x cheaper and better, especially not in a dying market like home printing
  • browningstreet 3y ago
    I have a printer I like but my experience is that the minute I print something the ink cartridge announces it’s low. It’ll run for a long time, but it’s like having a neighbor who’s fire alarm is going off at all times. It sours the ownership experience, even if I buy and keep a bucketful of spare ink cartridges handy.
  • 3y ago
• tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  There is intense competition. The printers themselves are remarkably cheap. I remember selling a colour QMS printer in the nineties for £25,000. You could get the same quality now for £50. The problem is that competition to provide a cheap printer has driven away all the profits so of course the manufacturers start looking elsewhere.
• tiltowait 3y ago
  Which Brother printer do you recommend? Several years ago (I'd guess 10?) I bought one (also a laser) because of comments like yours, and I was very disappointed. The print quality was considerably poorer than the Samsung it was replacing, and it died after just a couple of years.
• Clamchop 3y ago
  Patents for essential printer technologies should be well expired by now, patent terms not to exceed 20 years by international convention, if I'm not mistaken. You can't benefit from the latest but the inkjets and lasers of 20 years ago were pretty good and had more or less assumed their modern form already. My suspicion is more that it is a difficult market make decent margins in. The effort to lock in consumers to name-brand consumables, even by Brother these days, seems to belie that problem. Maybe there are other hurdles like sweetheart deals with chem manufacturers as well, I don't know.
  • ElevenLathe 3y ago
    Incumbents don't need to win any suits against you, just drag them out long enough to bankrupt you. You're probably right that you could build a nice printer with unpatented tech, but you'll end up in front of a judge in the eastern district of Texas anyway, possibly for years.
    • Clamchop 3y ago
      Untrue, clear-cut cases with plain facts like a patent being expired are dismissed with prejudice straight off the bat. Judges can be unreasonable but not to that degree, even in shitty districts. I can't find a single example of this happening. Perhaps it has given someone some trouble but it would be exceedingly rare. It's hard to imagine anyone trying, the law explicitly forbids it.
• ajhurliman 3y ago
  The Brother laser printers are incredible. That, the Oster fast feed trimmer and the swingaway can opener are the best products I’ve ever purchased.