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It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

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Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#301

Post by noir_lord »

dsr_ wrote: post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

Years ago the boss at the time wanted to do printing in a very dusty environment (stone, nothing flammable), specialist printers where expensive - my suggestion, buy a decent cheap brother printer and replace it when it died.

They where still using them when I left years later.

This is about the worst environment imaginable outside of trying to destroy them, a steel cabinet in an old workshop that wasn't really sealed from the elements where they where sandblasting stone and they just kept kicking.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#302

Post by hnu0847 »

dsr_ wrote: post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

Why do you recommend BRScript/3? I'm not disagreeing, just unfamiliar with different print drivers. I did find a page on Brother's website [1], but it says the advantages of BRScript/3 are mainly related to color graphics.

[1] https://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&pro...

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#303

Post by MandieD »

CRConrad wrote: post #255
SilverRed wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think reusable milk bottles and subscription vs product are linked together. There is no reason why a van couldn't deliver plastic milk bottles and there is no reason why a supermarket couldn't take a deposit for returned glass milk bottles. Supermarkets already do this, many will take back used sodastream CO2 canisters for a discount on the replacement. It just happens that these two changes happened at the…

> ...many will take back used sodastream CO2 canisters for a discount on the replacement. Holy shit, are you saying they're sold any other way?!? What, like people just throw them away? Holy chrome-moly, that's one I'd never imagined.

I’m pretty sure the deposit on the canisters is at least 4 EUR, and no one who is taking the trouble to fizz their own water and get replacements at the service desk would just chuck an empty one.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#304

Post by PostOnce »

knuthsat wrote: post #195
PostOnce wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other side of the coin: 1 truck delivers milk (and bread?) to an entire neighborhood, instead of 50 people driving 50 cars to get 50 bottles of milk.

Another side of the coin, the cow milk production obliterates any savings on transport of the milk to the consumer. It's one of the most energy intensive ways to produce food. (impregnating the cow every year, feeding the cow to support more than 7 gallons of milk a day, creating insane externalities by mishandling cow poo).

We could all live on soylent powder exclusively... We could eliminate all kinds of unnecessary food production. /s

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#305

Post by boring_twenties »

lostlogin wrote: post #213
NortySpock wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great advice, and I echo 95% of it. My observation is that I have found Wifi useful when I need the printer in an odd location in the house, and color is useful for non-professional usage like "the kids need to print out their report for school" and "the med school student needs anatomy diagrams in color" My trusty color Brother laser HL-3170CDW cost ~$300 at the time and has been trucking along for 7+ years now with…

> if all you are ever going to do is print your taxes and financial documents once a year I get that you’re making a point about printers being rarely used. The exact detail though - are there places where printing of your tax documents is still required and they can’t be digital?

Yeah, the USA.

The IRS rejected my e-filed tax returns a couple of years back, and demanded everything in paper form. Hundreds of pages.

The stated reason was due to possible fraud. Hilarious, in light of the fact that the return in question indicated tax owed, not a refund.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#306

Post by zizee »

derefr wrote: post #285
zizee wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really didnt want to start a big discussion about this... but I just can't help myself, so i will dig in. You're actually missing my main point. It really isn't about Staples, or North American vs the world, print quality, or preferences for B&W vs colour. My main point is this: Don't fall into the trap of thinking your life experience always maps well to eveyone else you interact with in life.

I realize that. And that was the point I was trying to contradict: that you shouldn't make arguments about life experience either way , without having quite a lot of it. Because sometimes, a thing that you might intuitively think is one of those "only rich North American people have it" things is actually something possessed by the vast majority of the world, and so is a very bad example — a counterexample , in fact…

> you shouldn't make arguments about life experience either way

These two arguments are not equivalent. Mathematically speaking, one side has to find just 20+% counter examples and the "vast majority" argument crumbles.

This thread has so many different people, from different parts of the world chiming in to say "this is not my lived experience", and you are still digging in to say "I'm right, the vast majority fit this mould".

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#307

Post by boring_twenties »

dsr_ wrote: post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

Anyone have any suggestions for a B&W laser printer that will work "driverless" on Linux over USB?

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#308

Post by dangrossman »

aasasd wrote: post #247
dangrossman wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My US county (Wake County, NC) has such a tax... worse even. Each year I have to catalog every pencil, pen, paperclip and ream of paper in my office. The desk, tables, shelves, printer ink, bottle of windex, each of my books, even individual USB cables all need to be listed. I need years acquired and purchase prices for every little object owned by each of my 4 businesses. Each summer, a tax bill shows up for my pers…

Sounds like it would be much easier to reincorporate in a neighbour county. I don't know, of course, if the US law gives a damn about you not being located there.

US law does care where you're located. Physical nexus means the local county can tax me. The business is actually domiciled in another state where I used to live.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#309

Post by SilverRed »

CRConrad wrote: post #255
SilverRed wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think reusable milk bottles and subscription vs product are linked together. There is no reason why a van couldn't deliver plastic milk bottles and there is no reason why a supermarket couldn't take a deposit for returned glass milk bottles. Supermarkets already do this, many will take back used sodastream CO2 canisters for a discount on the replacement. It just happens that these two changes happened at the…

> ...many will take back used sodastream CO2 canisters for a discount on the replacement. Holy shit, are you saying they're sold any other way?!? What, like people just throw them away? Holy chrome-moly, that's one I'd never imagined.

There are a few stores that only sell the new canisters and do not do the swaps. I imagine all users of the system will do the swaps though.

In my original comment I meant many stores and not many sodastream users, slightly confusing wording in my original comment.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#310

Post by CRConrad »

SilverRed wrote: post #309
CRConrad wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...many will take back used sodastream CO2 canisters for a discount on the replacement. Holy shit, are you saying they're sold any other way?!? What, like people just throw them away? Holy chrome-moly, that's one I'd never imagined.

There are a few stores that only sell the new canisters and do not do the swaps. I imagine all users of the system will do the swaps though. In my original comment I meant many stores and not many sodastream users, slightly confusing wording in my original comment.

No problem, I got that it was stores you meant. What I don't get is what customers do if they once get a canister from them: Now they have two. Can they return the extra for a refund in stead of replacement, at one of the "normal" places that does receive used ones? Or are they stuck with two canisters for ever more?
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