4 ms·

Surely 2D printing is pretty much a solved problem by now. How come there is no company making cheap, no-fuss printers that accept standard USB&network printing

by ginko 3y ago

Surely 2D printing is pretty much a solved problem by now. How come there is no company making cheap, no-fuss printers that accept standard USB&network printing driver protocols. You'd expect them to eat everyone's lunch. Arguably there should even be open source printers by now.

tonyedgecombe 3y ago
It's a race to the bottom where decent manufacturers get eaten for lunch.
Teandw 3y ago
The profit is in the ink rather than the printer. There are two issues with someone coming into the market with a cheap printer/ink. 1) It's hard for any business to keep selling a product at 10% profit margin when you know you can sell it for 200% profit margin with the price increase not affecting sales. 2) In the rare situation that a business would accept low margins 'just to be nice to the customer' - they'll just get bought out. It's hard to not accept 10 years of profit for a business when it's being offered to you.
franga2000 3y ago
Counterintuitively, 2D printers are substantially more complex than 3D printers. Everything inside them needs very tight tolerances and many thousands of custom components. The only companies that have the tooling to make printer-specific parts are printer manufacturers and they sure aren't going to sell you parts so you can directly compete with them.
interpol_p 3y ago
Brother might be closest to this? See https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-... I have a black-and-white laser Brother printer from over 15 years ago. Never changed the toner, comes out once every few months for the rare occasion I need to print something. I love it
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  I bought a massive Brother DCP-L8400CDN printer for home use after tangling with some monstrous HP combo printer/scanner that didn't like to scan if the ink wasn't genuine. It's a colour laser with double-sided printing and an ADF scanner that works brilliantly over a network connection. I've been running it for years with 3rd-party toner refills and it "just works", though occasionally I've had to power-cycle it when it was too sleepy and didn't wake from a Windows print job.
Larrikin 3y ago
Microwaves are also solved problems that are complete garbage now. Nobody gets to graduate college and become rich by maintaining a solution, so you get people who make products worse to show an increase in profit to justify their salaries and promotions.
- gambiting 3y ago
  Are they? I just had a look in Asda and 9/10 microwaves just had a start +add time button. Event the big brand ones. I think there was a Samsung one with one of these keypads that look like a 1998 Nokia but those are rare and I have no idea who buys them.
  - ginko 3y ago
    Guess grandparent is alluding to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiS27feX8o0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiS27feX8o0
- gosub100 3y ago
  Can you elaborate on what's wrong with them now? My chicken pot pie and frozen burrito still burns me while being frozen inside, just like it did 30 years ago.
bediger4000 3y ago
Kyocera is a candidate for this.

by ginko 3y ago

tonyedgecombe 3y ago

It's a race to the bottom where decent manufacturers get eaten for lunch.

Teandw 3y ago

The profit is in the ink rather than the printer. There are two issues with someone coming into the market with a cheap printer/ink. 1) It's hard for any business to keep selling a product at 10% profit margin when you know you can sell it for 200% profit margin with the price increase not affecting sales. 2) In the rare situation that a business would accept low margins 'just to be nice to the customer' - they'll just get bought out. It's hard to not accept 10 years of profit for a business when it's being offered to you.

franga2000 3y ago

Counterintuitively, 2D printers are substantially more complex than 3D printers. Everything inside them needs very tight tolerances and many thousands of custom components. The only companies that have the tooling to make printer-specific parts are printer manufacturers and they sure aren't going to sell you parts so you can directly compete with them.

interpol_p 3y ago

Brother might be closest to this? See https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-... I have a black-and-white laser Brother printer from over 15 years ago. Never changed the toner, comes out once every few months for the rare occasion I need to print something. I love it

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
I bought a massive Brother DCP-L8400CDN printer for home use after tangling with some monstrous HP combo printer/scanner that didn't like to scan if the ink wasn't genuine. It's a colour laser with double-sided printing and an ADF scanner that works brilliantly over a network connection. I've been running it for years with 3rd-party toner refills and it "just works", though occasionally I've had to power-cycle it when it was too sleepy and didn't wake from a Windows print job.

Larrikin 3y ago

Microwaves are also solved problems that are complete garbage now. Nobody gets to graduate college and become rich by maintaining a solution, so you get people who make products worse to show an increase in profit to justify their salaries and promotions.

gambiting 3y ago
Are they? I just had a look in Asda and 9/10 microwaves just had a start +add time button. Event the big brand ones. I think there was a Samsung one with one of these keypads that look like a 1998 Nokia but those are rare and I have no idea who buys them.
- ginko 3y ago
  Guess grandparent is alluding to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiS27feX8o0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiS27feX8o0
gosub100 3y ago
Can you elaborate on what's wrong with them now? My chicken pot pie and frozen burrito still burns me while being frozen inside, just like it did 30 years ago.

bediger4000 3y ago

Kyocera is a candidate for this.