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Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

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Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#171

Post by cmsonger »

carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

IMO, this is a byproduct of capitalism. Do you own Brother stock? (Don't even know if Brother is public.) If you own Brother stock, then you care about the stock price. I'm guessing Brother executives compensation is related to Brother stock price. Markets price in profit growth. Printing has long ago progressed to the point that further improvements are not needed for the human eye -- so Brother can hardly make more money by making a better printer.

It's why industries need to be regulated. A company run for shareholder value is going to maximize profits and externalize costs. This class of behavior is not at all unique to this product segment or this industry. You think this is annoying? Gonna be somewhere between interesting to horrifying to see what big tech does if the profit growth flags.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#172

Post by DrudgeCorporate »

thedougd wrote: post #154

My pretty old DCP-L2540DW has a new firmware update: 06/16/2022 Main: V / Sub: 1.06 Improvement to help with the performance of the machine. I think I'll pass.

Wouldn't they have had to put the chip in the printers years ago prepping for this? A firmware update isn't going to necessarily enable this 'feature'.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#173

Post by cpcallen »

citiguy wrote: post #165

Would you be interested in getting a laser printer? I have a Brother and it works very well. It doesn't come with a huge toner cartridge but I'm still on the starter and it's been more than 5 years. Honestly I don't print super often, but it's a nice to have thing. The build quality is also good. It's a bit of a pain to set up, but once done it "just works".

If you follow the links in the original post you will see that OP is talking about a Brother colour laser printer.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#174

Post by birktj »

I would recommend people who are looking for not only printers, but most kinds of equipment (except for cases where new stuff is unambiguously better than old stuff, but this is rare) to buy used professional/industrial hardware instead of new consumer equipment. And if this is difficult try to look for old consumer hardware still in good shape. These are often of much better quality and also it is much less wasteful to something used than new.

Professional equipment is usually in another league than consumer stuff when it comes to quality and reliability and also usually has very low resale value so you can get it for quite cheap. Personally I just picked up an old Sharp color laser printer for about 90$. This is a great machine that prints 2 sided A3 (very hard to find for laser printers) and with toners that should last about 10000 pages which is way better than anything you can buy as a consumer. The only backside is that it is quite big and heavy.

Old consumer equipment that is in good shape is often a good deal with the main reasoning being that something that has lasted for a long time has a higher probability of continuing to last a long time compared to something new where it is hard to say how long it will last.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#175

Post by torpid »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #20
carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

> I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device For printing something like once a month, it is even harder to justify wasting space by putting a printer. Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs.

I for one, like being able to print content in the privacy of my own home without letting private companies like Fedex/Kinkos see it, and potentially filter/share it with third parties.

We're already shifting towards a society where things that offer a traditional offline, anonymous way of transacting information or currency is being construed as a threat because "terrorism", aka it cannot be monitored and controlled. Easily justifiable to still have one.

My dad still uses a Laserjet 4L daily to print ebay stuff and refuses to replace it because it works, and my 14 year old brother mfc, with an ipv6 stack(!) still works as good as the day I bought it. These things last generations.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#176

Post by mc_woods »

carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

Public buy printers. Good printers last a long time. Printer company offers online services (drivers / patches / APIs - see original post) which have on gong cost. But revenue stops after printer is sold. Printer company's remaining income is ink, ink sales undercut. Printer company goes bust. Printer company, who make printer, force you to use their ink. Printer company does not go bust.

Alternative (game console model) printer company license right to make ink for printer. Printer company does not go bust.

Cost of printer is printer + driver + server over life time of printer... what the public pay; a single one time purchase price.... model doesn't work.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#177

Post by gpvos »

mariuolo wrote: post #166
300bps wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my late 40s and I remember the joy of printing out banners with Print Shop on a Commodore 64 using a dot matrix printer. It was fantastic but it's been pretty downhill since there. Video to show what I mean: https://youtu.be/BIltpheSZPs In the modern era, I've just bought a cheap Brother black and white laser printer and called it a day. The toner lasts F-O-R-E-V-E-R.

> The toner lasts F-O-R-E-V-E-R. Now you know why the manufacturer wants to change things.

They shouldn't. Just make a good product and ask a price for both printer and toner that properly covers costs and allows you to turn a profit.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#178

Post by gandalfian »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #97
gandalfian wrote: post #72

Yeah I'm struggling. Last 15 years I bought £50 multifunction brother or canon printers with separate ink cartridges and fake ink for a £1 a cartridge. Wore the heads out in about five years, repeat. Now they seem to have disappeared, all the cheap canons have combined colour ink cartridges not separate. A colour laser multifunction is expensive and may have pricey toner too. People here seem to like the Epson Ecotan…

Why do you think OS X will remove USB printer support in the future? I can't find any articles about that or anything hinting at that on the CUPS release notes.

I may be wrong, and its poorly phrased, but when a new version of OSX has required updated printer drivers I've had the impression that manufacturers have been less inclined to provide updated drivers. Generally the answer given is use airprint. But if you saved 30 bucks buying the non wifi printer that doesn't do you much good... So if I buy the non wifi model will it still be usable in a few OSX versions/years? I think it may be a lottery but I may be wrong. Airprint looks like a more generic standard that won't require you do get updated software from the manufacturer.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#179

Post by jasonjayr »

This is disappointing.

I had been recommending Brother printers exactly because they did not pull shenanigans like this, their windows drivers were pretty light weight, and their Linux support is very good.

Is anyone working on a OSS printer, like 3D printers? Buy an existing printer and then rip out + re-wire it's controller?

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#180

Post by _JamesA_ »

mc_woods wrote: post #176
carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

Public buy printers. Good printers last a long time. Printer company offers online services (drivers / patches / APIs - see original post) which have on gong cost. But revenue stops after printer is sold. Printer company's remaining income is ink, ink sales undercut. Printer company goes bust. Printer company, who make printer, force you to use their ink. Printer company does not go bust. Alternative (game console mo…

> drivers / patches / APIs

It's a shame there aren't any open standards like lpd, jetdirect, postscript, and pcl for printers. /s

The printer business model has been abused for a long time in an effort to squeeze every last dime out of the market.

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