Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#21

Post by rascul » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 12:54 PM UTC

sshine wrote: post #8

Home printers are like coffee pod machines: The money is made on the ink/coffee, and machines are pushed at a discount to dominate the ink/coffee distribution. The market is big and uncritical. Investing in high-quality machines is a long game that many can't justify and so avoid.

> The money is made on the ink/coffee, and machines are pushed at a discount to dominate the ink/coffee distribution.

Some years ago Walmart had a HP printer on sale for so cheap that it was more expensive to replace the ink than to get a new printer.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#22

Post by oneplane » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 12:54 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #14

jqpabc123 wrote: post #12

Avoid ink jet and use laser jet instead. This solved most of the frustration for me. The upfront cost is slightly higher, the print quality is slightly decreased but the long term satisfaction is greatly enhanced. Ink jet in any form is dead in my mind.

> The upfront cost is slightly higher, the print quality is slightly decreased but the long term satisfaction is greatly enhanced. OK but they still stop updating the drivers after 3 years, which is the main problem. Otherwise they would last forever.

What do you expect such a driver to do? The printer is essentially just a random network device. Packets go in, paper comes out. No drivers needed.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#23

Post by Ekaros » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 12:54 PM UTC

Printers are the most mechanically complex computer related product. Just think, fans are basically single bearing and motor. Pumps are pretty much same. Traditional spinning disk, nearly closed system with two motors.

Printers have multiple times this complexity. And the products bought are bought for lowest price. Or at least reasonable price. You get what you pay for. And what is paid is often very little. Thus poor quality and need for other revenue streams.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#24

Post by raverbashing » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 12:55 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #14

jqpabc123 wrote: post #12

Avoid ink jet and use laser jet instead. This solved most of the frustration for me. The upfront cost is slightly higher, the print quality is slightly decreased but the long term satisfaction is greatly enhanced. Ink jet in any form is dead in my mind.

> The upfront cost is slightly higher, the print quality is slightly decreased but the long term satisfaction is greatly enhanced. OK but they still stop updating the drivers after 3 years, which is the main problem. Otherwise they would last forever.

"updating the drivers" no

Good printers use PS/PCL, nobody cares about drivers, a generic one usually works

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#25

Post by sgjohnson » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 12:55 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #10

theandrewbailey wrote: post #4

You should probably clarify if you're asking about inkjet printers. I bought a laser printer almost 2 years ago. No complaints so far, but we'll see how long that lasts.

I have a Brother laser printer/scanner combo that I bought 8 years ago, I actually wish it broke down so I could replace it with something that supports AirPrint without feeling bad about throwing out perfectly good hardware

Hook it up to a Raspberry Pi and expose the printer over network

There you go, DIY AirPrint

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#26

Post by folkrav » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 12:55 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #6

Laser printers are the way to go. They are typically for offices and follow a different business level: large volume printing and low-cost ink.

Anything color that's reasonably priced?

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#27

Post by lqet » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 12:55 PM UTC

I have a Brother b/w laser printer from 2012. It cost around 60 EUR. Never had any problems with it. It's build like a tank, has 4 status LEDs, and one button. I buy a new off-brand toner every 2 years or so, and that's it.

Before this printer I went through multiple hp and Epson inkjet models. They were all horrible and usually broken after 2-3 years.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#28

Post by leonidasv » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 12:55 PM UTC

Toner printers are "less scammy", at least in my experience. I had a HP one and always bought the genuine cartridges.

Then I saw those videos about the printing industry scams (which does happen) and tried a third party toner that costs 1/5 of the price. Guess what? After like 10 perfect printed pages, it started leaking some powder, then stopped printing random chunks of the page and turned impossible to use.

I went back to the genuine cartridges and never left ever since. Also, the printing issues it had were identical to some issues I've had with public printers in libraries etc in the past. I guess that's because they're using those low-quality toners.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#29

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 12:55 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #10

theandrewbailey wrote: post #4

You should probably clarify if you're asking about inkjet printers. I bought a laser printer almost 2 years ago. No complaints so far, but we'll see how long that lasts.

I have a Brother laser printer/scanner combo that I bought 8 years ago, I actually wish it broke down so I could replace it with something that supports AirPrint without feeling bad about throwing out perfectly good hardware

I thought that too, but once I had access to AirPrint I realized I have never needed to print from my phone, or even barely ever from my laptop.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#30

Post by linsomniac » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 12:56 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #14

jqpabc123 wrote: post #12

Avoid ink jet and use laser jet instead. This solved most of the frustration for me. The upfront cost is slightly higher, the print quality is slightly decreased but the long term satisfaction is greatly enhanced. Ink jet in any form is dead in my mind.

> The upfront cost is slightly higher, the print quality is slightly decreased but the long term satisfaction is greatly enhanced. OK but they still stop updating the drivers after 3 years, which is the main problem. Otherwise they would last forever.

Largely true. I've always spent a few more dollars on Postscript printers, because that tended to solve some headaches with printing under Linux in the past, and I think that makes it less of an issue with driver longevity. But the problem is security updates, lots of attacks use printers to gain a foothold.