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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

#221

Post by colejohnson66 »

balabaster wrote: post #107
colejohnson66 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can return Amazon purchases without a printer. I've done it multiple times. You can either have them mail you a label (for $1) or take it to a UPS Store where they scan a barcode on your phone.

In the U.S. maybe those options work, but in Canada they don't. If by chance the goods were shipped via a courier that will scan the barcode to return, that works - UPS for instance, but 90% of the time you need to print a return label because the goods aren't returned via a carrier that supports that.

Ah. I was not aware you were Canadian; I was speaking about how it works in the US. My apologies.

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

#222

Post by benj111 »

blitz_skull wrote: post #131
s0l1dsnak3123 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again the "market" is abusing everyone in the pursuit of endless economic growth. Our economic system forces successful businesses into enemies of the consumer once they can't keep momentum. Coupled with the concentrating monopolisation of the economy, this creates a phenomenon where helpless consumers are held at ransom: the ultimatum being that they either continue to be exploited in ever more devious ways, or…

Uh... Pretty sure the printer industry is holding literally no one hostage. As mentioned in several comments—this industry is dead.

It isn't dead. I use my printer now more than ever for printing postage labels.

Will home printer usage decline? Probably yes, but just like I have a home phone that I barely use, people will probably keep a printer around just in case.

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

#223

Post by hnu0847 »

Hellbanevil wrote: post #189
Aeolun wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Printers became garbage when we switched from dot-matrix to inkjet. Then they were horrible for 20 years until I decided to buy a Brother laser printer, and suddenly everything was right in the world.

I had a inkjet (bought for an Atari 1020?) printer in college. Four years plus graduate school, and all I needed to pay extra for was 2 ribbons which were cheap. I was concerned my instructors might question wether I typed it, or used a dot matrix printer. None had a clue. I was one of the first people to have a computer and printer, and I was embarrassed. It felt like cheating. I will never understand why we as a so…

> In all honesty, I need to change my pipes to copper, or pex, but have procrastinating for years. Hence, I always buy Moen, and tell people just how good the company is.

What does the material your pipes are made from have to do with what company's faucets, showerheads, handles, etc. you buy? Also couldn't you replace your pipes but keep your existing Moen parts?

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

#224

Post by Lio »

This is very disappointing to hear. Brother were the one bright spot in the printer industry and I'm so much happier since I switched my business to using a Brother colour laser.

They've probably recruited one of the bright spark MBA execs that "revolutionised"[1] the other manufactures with this kind of rent seeking crap.

You know that deal, trade a firm's reputation for quality for a short term boost in profits, bank the bonus and move to another job before the chickens come home to roost. :(

1. By revolutionised I of course mean ruined.

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

#225

Post by benj111 »

s0l1dsnak3123 wrote: post #199
blitz_skull wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, without hyper-focusing on printers, I fail to see the call to action here. I don't understand why "this is not an economy that works for ordinary people". I consider myself pretty ordinary and my life is impacted almost 0 by the forces of elastic markets.

Inequality is getting worse and worse across the west: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk Businesses are choosing to use their profits to perform stock buybacks instead of innovating or improving standards for their workers: https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous-for... Meanwhile the cost of living is going through the roof: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefi…

So what was your story 2 years ago when energy was cheap and producers were closing down?

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

#226

Post by scarface74 »

s0l1dsnak3123 wrote: post #209
scarface74 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shouldn’t be focused on the printer market when commenting on a post about printers ? The printer market is a commodity market - the very opposite of a monopoly.

Yes, when replying to my general comment, you shouldn't use the typical conservative rhetorical tactic of using the specific to ridicule the principle. I was making a general argument about the pattern one can see across the economy. The printer market is another example of the same pattern that we see all over the place. I don't claim that the printer market is a single entity that towers over all - my point is that…

It’s not “being conservative”. It’s “commenting on the topic of the post”

But which technology market is a legally defined “monopoly”? Before you mention the phone market, that was already adjudicated during the Epic trial and found not to be the case.

As far as “everyone agreeing that capitalism optimizes for monopolies”. The car market has been around for over a century, is it a monopoly? The computer market? Exactly which market around technology is a legally defined “monopoly”?

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

#227

Post by diffeomorphism »

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…

> You really need wifi for airprint as its not clear that OSX will have much usb printer support in future.

Or you just connect a raspberry pi to the printer.

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

#228

Post by masswerk »

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

Just as a thought experiment, what about the other way round, where you could only rent a printer, fully serviced, as an appliance? Surely, this kind of business wouldn't be sustainable with this kind of tech with consumables running out every now and then, things breaking at any possible instance, non-replaceable consumables, etc. Follows, in addition to all this vendors are off-loading considerable hassles onto the "customer" (or rather, those who have no way around these offerings) to enable this scheme.

Suggested title for a fictitious article on the matter, "If the IBM 1401 had been built like a modern printer".

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

#229

Post by mdavis6890 »

An alternative viewpoint is that this business model is good for consumers, or a least differently neutral.

If printer companies try to make their money on the printer sale, then it's very difficult for folks who only need to print a little now and again, and they might not be able to afford a very good printer. By moving to a consumption-based revenue model, now they can let everyone have a super-cheap printer (they are MUCH cheaper than decades ago, despite inflation), and then the people who use the printer more (get more value from it) pay more, and those who don't pay less.

This seems reasonable, even though I also don't like hardware that bricks itself if I don't use as directed.

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