Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by mhh__ » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

jsilence wrote: post #44

Not to be meant snarky, but I think the office world should strive to print much less at all. Working at a University it is mind boggling to me how much paper is waster because someone internally decided they need a real signature. Not all my colleagues are savyy enough to paste a scanned signature into a pdf.

I enjoy printing stuff out to really digest it, but I absolutely agree that there is a huge amount of printing basically being done for no reason.

In a certain way I kind of enjoy printing to a printer that's not near me, if it can get away with it, if I have printed something off to read over the course of a week I feel like it adds some gravitas to actually go and fetch it.

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

#122

Post by sahkopoyta » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #71

jonnycomputer wrote: post #15

I'm increasingly getting irritated by the feeling that I don't actually own or control the hardware I purchase.

That's why I buy hardware that starts with "i" in its name. That way, I know that "I" am the owner and "I" am in complete control.

have you tried fixing your i-devices? I would not call it complete control if seemingly unrelated parts stop working after replacing some part yourself

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

#123

Post by shostack » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

egberts1 wrote: post #47

Brothers LaserJet. No malware, no adware, no funky drivers; just colored, WiFi, LP-protocol, multi-tray PCL and PS support. Best thing since sliced bread.

You know a market is bad when a company can lead the space simply with the platform of "we won't scam you."

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

#124

Post by matheusmoreira » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

osrec wrote: post #22

Damn the need for recurring revenue. It makes us make bad things that eat away at our own resources. I wished there was an alternative payment model, where everything is perhaps paid off over time. If the product fails during the specified time period, the payments stop. It would hopefully give the companies some sort of recurring revenue, while incentivising them to build something that lasts and not play dirty tric…

> Damn the need for recurring revenue.

They'd still be thriving under an honest business model. There is no need for any of this. There is only greed.

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

#125

Post by lazide » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #80

lazide wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of people out there that haven’t figured out the scam yet, and new ones minted every day. And those brands will sell 5 of these rip-off inkjets to someone at high margin before they figure it out and buy a brother once - for 1/5 of the total profit to brother.

But between Consumer Reports, Wirecutter, the 18 million review websites, Costco, I feel like such an obviously superior brand and product should have had its reputation widely known by now, like Toyota/Honda.

Plenty of folks still buying GM, Ford, and a hundred other brands based on the market data though right?

If it takes a decade for someone to figure this out, and most people are buying things like this in the late teens to early thirties, then no matter what you’re going to have ~2/3 of the market who hasn’t figured it out.

Also, a lot of folks get drawn like a magnet to new and shiny, or whatever the latest marketing spiel is and don’t even think of the long term impact. Like the vast majority.

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

#126

Post by tempfs » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

egberts1 wrote: post #47

Brothers LaserJet. No malware, no adware, no funky drivers; just colored, WiFi, LP-protocol, multi-tray PCL and PS support. Best thing since sliced bread.

Another vote for Brother's Laser printers. Love mine, cheap, reliable and works on Linux without a hitch.

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

#127

Post by netcan » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

Something very dystopian about these kinds of stories. Wringing the market like a wet mop. A limping business model for a piece of home equipment built on low quality, adware and gimmicky nonsense. .. winning the race to the bottom.

Ultimately, there's always a market for value but there's also always a market for the cheapest possible thing.

Is it possible to have a company today premised on the idea of making a decent, cheap printer?

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

#128

Post by JustAnonymous » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

jonnycomputer wrote: post #15

I'm increasingly getting irritated by the feeling that I don't actually own or control the hardware I purchase.

This is actually about software more than hardware. Richard Stallman's spark for founding the free software movement was being unable to modify his lab printer's source code to do what he wanted it to do.

A lot of us have been conditioned to think you "just can't" modify things like firmware, or OSes, (or increasingly in phones/tablets, user-space). But for Stallman's generation, hardware devices were 100% owned, repairable and hackable by their owners. Only software and the abuse of it could so comprehensively change a hardware device from something you obviously own, to something which in a real sense you don't control or even realistically own anymore. Apple is leading the charge in this as other companies itch to pile in.

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

#129

Post by sxt » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

alerighi wrote: post #18

I stopped buying inkjet printers. They are a scam, the ink costs a fortune and they are built as cheap as they can, meaning that they will break and you have to throw them away because they are impossible to repair, they are slow and when you need them they don't work because they were not used for too much time. After having 5 broken printers in the garage I said enough, that is a useless waste, and invested some mo…

My friend, if you have the time, learn to refill your cartridges on your own. I own one of them cheap HP 25XX for home use, I simply refuse to buy new cartridges and give in, I instead got a refill kit with 100ml bottles of all colours for ~9$, and now all I need is 15 min of time for refill and the slight risk of creating a mess during the process.

The HP cartridge holds an approx 9ml, so that gives an idea of how long those bottles should last(Also colour is 9/3 ml colours). Once these are done, I can just go ahead and get just a few more bottles which drives the price down further.

I've had no issues in printing apart from the first time I had done it. I obviously would recommend getting one of those brother Ink tank ones, but there's no need to trash an HP if you can figure to do this and keep a backup cheap maintenance printer.

Btw, I still use the stock cartridges that came with the printer, saving on a ton of cash and pain of hunting for cartridges.

P.S: I've tried this on 2 other models too with no issues

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

#130

Post by jonnycomputer » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 4:58 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #71

jonnycomputer wrote: post #15

I'm increasingly getting irritated by the feeling that I don't actually own or control the hardware I purchase.

That's why I buy hardware that starts with "i" in its name. That way, I know that "I" am the owner and "I" am in complete control.

So this morning I noticed that the LEDs were on on the computer I built even after I shut it down. That's how it works by default, but I didn't like it, so changed the setting in the BIOS. I have to think that something reset back to the defaults, and I'm guessing Windows 10? I built it so I know it, but I guess I still don't own it. And don't get me started on how Windows 10 never goes to sleep like it should.

Maybe I'm curmudgeonly, but I'm tired of things I choose being changed on me, things I own be used to profit on me, things I use to spy on me. And its not just software and hardware. For example, I bank at X, but they've merged with another bank and are becoming Y. So now different website, different checks, different name, etc. and for what? for a line on some CEOs resume. Similar when I make a loan and the loan is sold to someone else, and my payment processing routine has to change to accommodate someone else's profit-making deal.