5 ms·

Thankfully the demand for printers is fading. This will of course cause printer mfrs to double down on their lockdowns ("Sorry, your toner is too old so you'll

by gumby 3y ago

Thankfully the demand for printers is fading. This will of course cause printer mfrs to double down on their lockdowns ("Sorry, your toner is too old so you'll have to go out and buy new a new cartridge"). But its their anti-consumer practices that drive people not to print. My kiddo bought a new printer in 2015 because he had to print something for high school and the toner cartridge was empty. It was cheaper to buy a whole replacement brother with the starter cartridge than to just get a cartridge (and it was delivered for free within the a couple of hours!). I still have it, still use it once in a while, and it's still on that same starter cartridge and maybe the same ream of paper. Two more kids have finished high school using it...hardly at all. In the past year I can remember two printer jobs, each a single page.

LeonB 3y ago
Love the use of: “Printer mfrs” As we all know it isn’t just an abbreviation for “manufacturers”
- adalacelove 3y ago
  To save ink in case you print Hacker News for reading.
  - tigerlily 3y ago
    Not if you print it in dark mode.
pjmlp 3y ago
I print regularly, plenty of stuff requires signatures, and being safe when travelling. Work stuff requires offline archives for contracts and legal stuff Regarding travelling, is no fun when something happens trying to show the ticket from an app that for whatever reason decides not to start, or having the phone dying on me. Paper to the rescue.
- cyberax 3y ago
  > I print regularly, plenty of stuff requires signatures, and being safe when travelling. Lifehack: you can annotate a PDF with a signature and just send it to the receiver. The only time I couldn't do that was when I needed a notarized document. > Regarding travelling, is no fun when something happens trying to show the ticket from an app that for whatever reason decides not to start, or having the phone dying on me. Paper to the rescue. Yup. I save screenshots of barcodes for tickets and other stuff instead. I have a second phone as a backup :)
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    > Lifehack: you can annotate a PDF with a signature and just send it to the receiver. No I cannot, because they won't be accepted by the receivers I work with.
    - gdprrrr 3y ago
      https://pypi.org/project/look-like-scanned/ https://pypi.org/project/look-like-scanned/
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        Where in my comment did I stated the documents had to be given back scanned?
        Osiris 3y ago
        Why the negativity? Why not just say that you need to provide original paper documents? The previous comment was just trying to be helpful.
        pjmlp 3y ago
        Had I explicitly mentioned scanning, I would have welcomed, I didn't.
_a_a_a_ 3y ago
You seem to have extrapolated from your printing habits to the world's, and that's not a good basis for your claim.
arcticbull 3y ago
> It was cheaper to buy a whole replacement brother with the starter cartridge than to just get a cartridge... This may not actually be the case, 'starter' cartridges often have significantly less toner than full-size. Also, Brother is among the better actors in the printer space - I believe that Louis Rossmann has one, and talks it up in [1] at around 11:30. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGszSj0BLeg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGszSj0BLeg
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > This may not actually be the case, 'starter' cartridges often have significantly less toner than full-size. But it definitely is the case. They still haven't exhausted the starter cartridge.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    That they haven't gotten to the bottom of the starter cartridge doesn't mean it isn't cheaper to get cartridges than new printers. If a new printer costs the same as a new cartridge but the cartridge contains twice the toner, then the new printer is twice as expensive per page. That's true even if they haven't gotten to the bottom of the starter yet. It just means they don't print much.
    - jjk166 3y ago
      No one cares about how much ink they have, they care about being able to print what they need to. If the toner expires before you would use it, then it doesn't matter if you're left with a drop or a gallon.
      - arcticbull 3y ago
        Toner cartridges last for years and years - but even still, a new starter cartridge isn't going to have way way less toner. It will have enough to change the economics. Some brother FAQ pages say like 66%. 1000 pages for starter, 1500 for regular, 2600 for high-capacity. I'd link but it wasn't clear which specific printer this was for vs. the one the OP mentioned, and I didn't spend enough time to look for a trend. Toner is just a container with little balls of plastic. Ink, sure, but this conversation was about laser.
Dalewyn 3y ago
>Thankfully the demand for printers is fading. Maybe in your little corner of the world, but for the rest of us we need ink (or toner) on paper to just conduct life.
salawat 3y ago
>Thankfully the demand for printers is fading. If that is the case, it is more because of a failing on our part to teach people the benefits of printing than anything else. I'll hold onto my printer and print language stdlib and API reference docs til the day I die. There's just something about having it in print that helps me navigate the corpus of information more effectively.
wkat4242 3y ago
Well, double down? When I check the shops here the open ink tank printers are everywhere from every manufacturer. Just pour ink in. That's a lot more open than they used to be. Ps: my printing needs are also minimal these days. A boarding pass here, a form there. A couple of pages a month. I have a Brother laser for that reason, no heads to dry out and consumables are cheap.
KolenCh 3y ago
Starter cartridge can be smaller in volume than the standalone ones you buy though. Unless you are certain they are identical, you can't compare price if a new printer to new cartridge. Sometimes what you said is true though, because they want to sell you a product that keep you buying their cartridge so selling the printer "at a loss" can be profitable.

by gumby 3y ago

LeonB 3y ago

Love the use of: “Printer mfrs” As we all know it isn’t just an abbreviation for “manufacturers”

adalacelove 3y ago
To save ink in case you print Hacker News for reading.
- tigerlily 3y ago
  Not if you print it in dark mode.

pjmlp 3y ago

I print regularly, plenty of stuff requires signatures, and being safe when travelling. Work stuff requires offline archives for contracts and legal stuff Regarding travelling, is no fun when something happens trying to show the ticket from an app that for whatever reason decides not to start, or having the phone dying on me. Paper to the rescue.

cyberax 3y ago
> I print regularly, plenty of stuff requires signatures, and being safe when travelling. Lifehack: you can annotate a PDF with a signature and just send it to the receiver. The only time I couldn't do that was when I needed a notarized document. > Regarding travelling, is no fun when something happens trying to show the ticket from an app that for whatever reason decides not to start, or having the phone dying on me. Paper to the rescue. Yup. I save screenshots of barcodes for tickets and other stuff instead. I have a second phone as a backup :)
- pjmlp 3y ago
  > Lifehack: you can annotate a PDF with a signature and just send it to the receiver. No I cannot, because they won't be accepted by the receivers I work with.
  - gdprrrr 3y ago
    https://pypi.org/project/look-like-scanned/ https://pypi.org/project/look-like-scanned/
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      Where in my comment did I stated the documents had to be given back scanned?
      - Osiris 3y ago
        Why the negativity? Why not just say that you need to provide original paper documents? The previous comment was just trying to be helpful.
        pjmlp 3y ago
        Had I explicitly mentioned scanning, I would have welcomed, I didn't.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago

You seem to have extrapolated from your printing habits to the world's, and that's not a good basis for your claim.

arcticbull 3y ago

> It was cheaper to buy a whole replacement brother with the starter cartridge than to just get a cartridge... This may not actually be the case, 'starter' cartridges often have significantly less toner than full-size. Also, Brother is among the better actors in the printer space - I believe that Louis Rossmann has one, and talks it up in [1] at around 11:30. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGszSj0BLeg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGszSj0BLeg

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> This may not actually be the case, 'starter' cartridges often have significantly less toner than full-size. But it definitely is the case. They still haven't exhausted the starter cartridge.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  That they haven't gotten to the bottom of the starter cartridge doesn't mean it isn't cheaper to get cartridges than new printers. If a new printer costs the same as a new cartridge but the cartridge contains twice the toner, then the new printer is twice as expensive per page. That's true even if they haven't gotten to the bottom of the starter yet. It just means they don't print much.
  - jjk166 3y ago
    No one cares about how much ink they have, they care about being able to print what they need to. If the toner expires before you would use it, then it doesn't matter if you're left with a drop or a gallon.
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      Toner cartridges last for years and years - but even still, a new starter cartridge isn't going to have way way less toner. It will have enough to change the economics. Some brother FAQ pages say like 66%. 1000 pages for starter, 1500 for regular, 2600 for high-capacity. I'd link but it wasn't clear which specific printer this was for vs. the one the OP mentioned, and I didn't spend enough time to look for a trend. Toner is just a container with little balls of plastic. Ink, sure, but this conversation was about laser.

Dalewyn 3y ago

>Thankfully the demand for printers is fading. Maybe in your little corner of the world, but for the rest of us we need ink (or toner) on paper to just conduct life.

salawat 3y ago

>Thankfully the demand for printers is fading. If that is the case, it is more because of a failing on our part to teach people the benefits of printing than anything else. I'll hold onto my printer and print language stdlib and API reference docs til the day I die. There's just something about having it in print that helps me navigate the corpus of information more effectively.

wkat4242 3y ago

Well, double down? When I check the shops here the open ink tank printers are everywhere from every manufacturer. Just pour ink in. That's a lot more open than they used to be. Ps: my printing needs are also minimal these days. A boarding pass here, a form there. A couple of pages a month. I have a Brother laser for that reason, no heads to dry out and consumables are cheap.

KolenCh 3y ago

Starter cartridge can be smaller in volume than the standalone ones you buy though. Unless you are certain they are identical, you can't compare price if a new printer to new cartridge. Sometimes what you said is true though, because they want to sell you a product that keep you buying their cartridge so selling the printer "at a loss" can be profitable.