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Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

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Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#471

Post by klodolph »

coldtea wrote: post #460
klodolph wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A photo service is just somebody else who owns printers and charges you a markup. If you print one-off photos of decent quality, probably going to be RA-4, inkjet, or dye sub. This is true whether or not you own the printer yourself.

> A photo service is just somebody else who owns printers and charges you a markup. It's somebody else who owns much hiqher quality printers that you would buy, and who charges everybody for a markup (so it gets spread). It's usually cheaper to print in such a service than to buy printer+ink+paper and print - and with better results.

> It's somebody else who owns much hiqher quality printers that you would buy,…

This is just completely untrue. What kind of machines do you think they have back there?

Photo labs typically have two types of machines: something like a Noritsu which prints onto standard RA-4 paper with lasers, and ordinary inkjet printers, like the ones from Epson or Canon (like what I’ve purchased for myself—I’ve occasionally seen the same exact model behind the counter at photo labs—the same printer I have at home).

The advantage of the Noritsu style machines is that you can churn out hundreds of 4"x6" photos per hour. It’s not higher-quality than inkjet… actually, inkjet prints are better, and you can do that at home. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense—the Noritsu is constrained by RA-4 chemistry, but the Epson / Canon ink can be anything that you can squirt out an inkjet head.

You can calculate the break even point for inkjet printers. If you’re printing, say, 8x10s, then break-even is somewhere around 200 prints, over the lifetime of the printer, compared to using the cheapest discount services online. This is if you decide to get a photo inkjet printer (around $300), account for the cost of ink ($0.01 per square inch) and high-quality paper (also around $0.01 per square inch) and compare it against online services (around $3 for the cheapest 8x10s).

If you aren’t printing many photos or are sticking to the super-cheap 4"x6" size, go ahead and take your photos to the lab. But the photo lab ain’t magic—it’s mostly just equipment that you could reasonably buy for your home.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#472

Post by kube-system »

pepoluan wrote: post #444
kube-system wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the functional difference between those items is staggering. The difference in capacity alone between the HP all-in-one and the Xerox copier is literally the same in magnitude (60-80x) as the difference in capacity between a semi truck and a passenger vehicle. These are different tools that literally do different things. You can't print 250 handouts with that HP all-in-one, and you can't transport 25,000 lbs of…

25 page X 10 is a total of just 250 pages, a desktop Inkjet printer (the kind that uses ink tanks, not cartridges) can handle it no sweat, if a bit slower. Probably takes half an hour to complete. When you hit 100 pages for 20 people though... ;-) But I agree with the general gist of your post. Desktop personal printers are simply not built for _regular_ high load.

The DeskJet I linked wouldn't be able to complete that print job, under any circumstance. Besides running out of paper, and overflowing the output tray -- the cartridges would run out before you finished the print job. The newer consumer inkjets with tanks will have enough ink, but likely won't have the tray capacity either. Most consumer printers are made to max-out around the length of a long school paper or a family's tax return.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#473

Post by account42 »

blackearl wrote: post #414
CharlesW wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing about laser is it's not a great answer for your typical boomer mom-level consumer. I'm not sure how someone's age matters, but the elderly appreciate "it just works" peripherals just as much as you little whipper-snappers. One of the best things we did for my mom-in-law was replace her ink-jet printer with a laser printer. B&W MFCs start around $200.

My mom wants to print photos of her grand kids and would absolutely balk at a printer over $150. Before the pandemic, a decent HP inkjet was $60.

> Before the pandemic, a decent HP inkjet was $60.

$60 + Ink

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#474

Post by scottlamb »

derfj wrote: post #372
sangnoir wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As many techies will probably always say anytime inkjet product shenanigans come up: just buy a laser printer It's Canon/HP/$MANUFATURER shenanigans - nothing inherent to inkjets. I think the better solution is to buy from more ethical printer companies, like Brother.

Personal story about a sister-in-law that worked for Brother for 5+ years, all her stories made it seem like a employee focused and ethical company. She got really sick really fast, Brother fired her as suddenly the "position no longe existed", cancelled her health insurance, and - speaking with their lawyers - they knew that she might very well not live to see the end of a civil case trying to reinstate her position…

How terrible!

FWIW, I think Brother's lawyers are really bad if they think they can do this with impunity. I'm not a lawyer, and of course I don't know your family's situation or if your grieving sibling had/has energy to fight them, but this sounds to me like something that the next-of-kin/a heir can call them on if they choose to. In particular, if this was in the US I think it's illegal to terminate the position and health coverage without offering COBRA, regardless of the reason. There would be very clear damages, and this additionally makes one view "the position no longer existed" skeptically. I was a potential juror in a civil wrongful termination case this month. (I got excused on the third day of jury selection.) This case went to court nine years after the event, so four years is not too late. My understanding is that in a civil case, your sibling would just have to convince a jury it's more likely than not your sister-in-law was terminated improperly. I wouldn't rule out a criminal case also.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#475

Post by yawaramin »

The era of printers is over. Use PDF viewers to display and annotate documents. MacOS Preview app lets you add arbitrary text, drawings, shapes, and pretty passable signatures.

For scanning, download the Microsoft Lens app for your phone, it works well.

Stop buying personal printers. They're bad for the environment. We should make them a dead technology.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#476

Post by teakettle42 »

yawaramin wrote: post #475

The era of printers is over. Use PDF viewers to display and annotate documents. MacOS Preview app lets you add arbitrary text, drawings, shapes, and pretty passable signatures. For scanning, download the Microsoft Lens app for your phone, it works well. Stop buying personal printers. They're bad for the environment. We should make them a dead technology.

No. I’ll just keep printing documents for both reading and archival.

I even have a comb binding machine so that I can assemble booklets of related published papers, which I rely on — in combination with the digital form — for my work.

Sometimes it’s just more efficient to page through and find what you’re looking for in a physical document, and reserve my screens for other information.

Furthermore, “bad for the environment” is an empty, thought terminating argument. Personal computers are bad for the environment, and you’re even worse for the environment, but that’s not an argument for eliminating computers or you.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#477

Post by pdimitar »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #362
ouid wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda sounds like the whole economy though.

In some ways we bring it on ourselves by being such cheapskates. People post reviews in the app stores because they think $2 is expensive for an app then wonder why they end up with free software that sells their private data to the highest bidder.

I never had a problem paying for good software. The issue is that the paid software very often isn't better, that's why many people started gravitating towards the free apps, me included.

Nobody likes being scammed even if it's just for $2.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#478

Post by pintxo »

derfj wrote: post #372
sangnoir wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As many techies will probably always say anytime inkjet product shenanigans come up: just buy a laser printer It's Canon/HP/$MANUFATURER shenanigans - nothing inherent to inkjets. I think the better solution is to buy from more ethical printer companies, like Brother.

Personal story about a sister-in-law that worked for Brother for 5+ years, all her stories made it seem like a employee focused and ethical company. She got really sick really fast, Brother fired her as suddenly the "position no longe existed", cancelled her health insurance, and - speaking with their lawyers - they knew that she might very well not live to see the end of a civil case trying to reinstate her position…

A tragedy, and showing a lack of ethics on the company side.

But frankly, the bigger problem is not the company ethics - (big) companies rarely have them - but the lack of an employer independent healthcare.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#479

Post by tatersolid »

centizen wrote: post #271
neilv wrote: post #173

As many techies will probably always say anytime inkjet product shenanigans come up: just buy a laser printer. And I now add: and don't let it connect to the Internet, and don't install proprietary drivers or software for it on your computers. Also, remember the names of companies doing sketchy things, and do your part to provide negative feedback when you can, and to give positive feedback to better companies. (Exam…

Canon was actually on my short list of printer vendors I would have recommended people to use. Now it's just down to Brother and Kyocera I guess.

We have a bunch of different Kyoceras at the office. The software is buggy as hell, yet they hide their security updates behind a super-expensive support contract with an “authorized” reseller.

Thats criminal in my opinion. Never buy again. Sharp does the same thing for their larger “enterprise” MFPs.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#480

Post by ruined »

mhh__ wrote: post #417
ruined wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

anything you can do at home sucks for photos. drugstore prints too. you can't expect inkjet pigments to last very long. if you want a decent photo print that won't deteriorate, projection onto real silver or archival color process is the way to go.

That sounds overkill just for a glossy picture of my dog

yeah but maybe you really like your dog
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