201–210 of 213 posts
This question further reinforces my belief that most people really haven't internalized the motives and means of modern capitalism.
You can answer many questions like this by referring to a crude old southern homily:
"Why does a dog lick his balls?"
The very widely applicable metaphorical answer:
"Because he can."
My Brother black-and-white laser is about ten years old. Pretty low volume of use from me, but it's held up well and is one of the most satisfying technology purchases I've ever made. If it stopped working, I would buy a Brother printer tomorrow without even looking at other brands. The printer industry is horrible, but also HP is toxic at every level and across every product and service. Just avoid.
Brother printers have regressed as well. See this post: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131
I used to work for Lexmark, back when they were in the inkjet business. They are perhaps most notable for starting and fueling the race to the bottom in printer price. The theory was that if you could lock the users in, the customer lifetime value would be made on selling profitably prices supplies (i.e. the ink cartridge). There were a few big problems with this: - People often could buy a new printer, with supplies…
Just an anecdote: my grandfather passed away a few years ago and he was always into new technology. After he passed when we were cleaning up his home we found no fewer than 11 inkjet printers in his basement. Every time one stopped working (probably ran out of ink, or printed poorly because of long delays between printing) he would go to Best Buy, get talked up by a salesperson about a nice new printer, and buy it. I…
A guy on FB marketplace was locally selling one brand new for $250 (and took $175 if I picked up same day), because his dad had one that ran out of toner so the father had just bought a new one. It actually came with the new receipts from Best Buy. Looks like BB upsold on lasers too.
Except, it's a low-end business class laser, and they last forever. This thing is great.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious what metals would be affordable and durable that would not bring the cost of cheap printers up too high?
All of them, Aluminium is 2.49 USD per KG, steel is like 4 times cheaper. We use plastics because they can be moulded into any shape in seconds. Aluminium is used for premium products instead of steel because it's easier to manufacture into shape - you can cut an aluminium beam as large as your arm with a hacksaw in a minute or two. If that was structural steel, you would batrely make a dent in hours. This reflects o…
One "scam" that I realise HP is pulling: my OfficeJet 8710 printer seems to be cleaning its print heads every time it's turned on. I've gotten "please replace ink cartridges" messages when I've never even printed a single page since I replaced the previous cartridge — since I use the printer mostly for its ADF scanning function. Well, that's ~$100 I'll never get back. It's sad that the industry has moved in this dire…
I think inkjets have to do that or the ink dries inside the heads and they clog up. This is why if you print rarely, you should really go for a toner-based printer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My father in law had an old laser printer that he could not get to work under windows 10 since the drivers only support windows 7 and refuse to install.
Does it need proprietary drivers at all? I don't think I've seen a printer that does for decades, but I certainly haven't used all printers.
Not trolling - but what are y'all still printing these days? I've literally printed 2 things this year, and one was a boarding pass (I like having a paper backup, call me old-fashioned). If anything, I've used the scan-to-email function on the printer about 10x more, and I could probably have gotten away with just taking a photo of the documents in extremis.
I mostly print topo maps of wilderness areas I'll be backpacking in.
Not trolling - but what are y'all still printing these days? I've literally printed 2 things this year, and one was a boarding pass (I like having a paper backup, call me old-fashioned). If anything, I've used the scan-to-email function on the printer about 10x more, and I could probably have gotten away with just taking a photo of the documents in extremis.
I only need to print one or two things per year, and a long time ago I realised it wasn't worth me owning my own printer for that. Now I just get stuff printed out at the local library. The per-page cost is relatively high, but still an order of magnitude lower than amortising the cost of a whole printer myself, not to mention offloading the hassle of maintenance and refills, and the money goes to supporting the libr…
That said, the scanner has been super-handy through the pandemic
Not trolling - but what are y'all still printing these days? I've literally printed 2 things this year, and one was a boarding pass (I like having a paper backup, call me old-fashioned). If anything, I've used the scan-to-email function on the printer about 10x more, and I could probably have gotten away with just taking a photo of the documents in extremis.
There may be other things I'm not thinking of. Overall it ends up being a few hundred pages a year.