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

#241

Post by greentissue » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

somehnguy wrote: post #220

lotsofpulp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand how the other printer brands are even in business when Brother is an option. I feel like their reputation for being the best in the consumer space would have spread far and wide by now. I have been able to scan all of my documents with their MFC line directly to my Dropbox (or box or drive or onedrive) account for over 6 years now, AND Brother Web Connect automatically OCR’s them.

FWIW I was totally set on picking up a Brother B&W Laser a few months ago to replace my crappy inkjet because I've had great experiences with them in the past. I wanted it now though, and locally could only really find a good deal on a Canon. I'm extremely happy with it, prints great, fast enough for me, can get knockoff toner for cheap on Amazon that hasn't given me any issues, and the wifi networking is rock solid.…

Brother makes good hardware but bad software. They recently gave up support on newer versions MacOS. They have an android printing driving with 100+ reviews @ 1.X out of 5 stars. It not longer works on newer android phones. I've tried for years to get my networked brother multifunction laster printer working with my chromebook to no avail. If it somewhat works its printing things slightly incorrectly, running out of memory, etc...

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

#242

Post by NegativeLatency » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #146

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…

I got my first printer in high school, around 90-91. It was an HP laserjet printer, when they were first going mainstream. I loved it, it always printed well, and the toner seemed to last forever. Of course, it was B/W, but that was all I needed. Fast forward to today, I have never owned an inkjet printer. Over the past 30 years I’ve owned a total of 3 laser printers. The second was in 2005, because I wanted a scanne…

Still on my first b/w laser printer from 15 years ago. Got it setup with CUPS to enable air print hosted from my Linux home server

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

#243

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

marcodiego wrote: post #214

slim wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Condescending is used when you describe someone who thinks he is superior to others.

TIL! False cognate. I'm not a native speaker. In Portuguese there is the term "condescendente" which means "indulgent, one who doesn't imposes discipline". What is the equivalent term in English?

I’d use accepting, though it is bland. Trusting might work as well.

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

#244

Post by kube-system » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #221

kube-system wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s has historically proven difficult to sustain that model because the consumer printer market for the past 20 years has been race to the bottom. It’s hard to compete when competitors are selling their printers at or below cost. Consumers mostly tend to make their purchase decisions on the margin, and so the razors-and-blades model works well. I guess there may be a few recent exceptions to this like the Epson Ecot…

Well, the EcoTanks are pretty expensive to begin with. They also have some colour quality issues that requires you to waste ink to like… recalibrate every so often, or something thing like that? But most of the time, it's fine, and the ink is cheap.

All of the inkjets on the shelf would have similar prices to the EcoTanks if they weren't sold at or below cost and subsidized by their cartridges.

It costs HP/Canon at least (if not more than) $49 to build a $49 inkjet all-in-one.

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

#245

Post by skjoldr » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

jSherz wrote: post #238

skjoldr wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got two A3 inkjets, an older Epson Stylus Photo 1410 with 3rd party ink tanks installed and externalized waste ink container mod, and a newer Epson L1800 with built-in ink tanks, at my workplace. Both are 6 color photo printers. I've kept them running for years with few problems. Long-term maintenance consists in keeping the nozzle clear of dried pigment, chaniging the rubber paper feed roller every couple of ye…

Any tips on choosing an ink supplier? It seems to be a bit of a crap shoot.

I was recommended this ink by local printer servicemen. It turns out they really don't like working on broken inkjets (it's really messy and it's not guaranteed that a dirty nozzle will work even after ultrasonic cleaning), so they tend to give sound advice on how best to keep them running, including ink choice. It really depends on the printer manufacturer and model so YMMV.

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

#246

Post by codazoda » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

EvanAnderson wrote: post #154

jader201 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got my first printer in high school, around 90-91. It was an HP laserjet printer, when they were first going mainstream. I loved it, it always printed well, and the toner seemed to last forever. Of course, it was B/W, but that was all I needed. Fast forward to today, I have never owned an inkjet printer. Over the past 30 years I’ve owned a total of 3 laser printers. The second was in 2005, because I wanted a scanne…

Fed a diet of the necessary consumables-- toners/drums, fusers, rollers, separation pads, etc-- a 1990s LaserJet will outlive us all. For me, "peak LaserJet" was probably the LaserJet 4 w/ an integral JetDirect. The 4000 that followed was pretty solid and faster but more plastic-ey than the 4.

I have a 15 year old Wi-Fi Brother Laser that is still going strong. I’ve replaced toners a few times and the drum once. I’m sure it will last another 10 years. They still sell a brand new model that is almost identical.

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

#247

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #229

jacquesm wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, just out of warranty... too bad, really! But do not despair, you could probably fix it if you set your mind to it, or make one working one out of two broken ones, assuming you can find another broken one.

This was years ago. I went without for a while but recently decided my demand for color printing and scanning in my home exceeded my supply of cash needed to get a crappy injket. Even used color laserjets are hard to come by for mortal prices.

Keep an eye on bankruptcy auctions, those tend to have lots of good hardware which gets sold at very low prices. The more obscure the auction house the bigger the chance that you will score cheaply.

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

#248

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 6:21 PM UTC

spideymans wrote: post #132

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…

Crazy idea, but Amazon Prime Printing. It would be a great free Amazon Prime perk for the home market, where people print only a few times a year, and don’t necessarily mind waiting 24 to 48 hour for a printed document to come in the mail. I’d imagine revenue could come in from higher-quality printing options (photos, books, etc…) Living in a small apartment, I don’t have the space to keep a printer that would only b…

We have a “copy cat” and mailbox place around the corner. Check your favorite mapping site.

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

#249

Post by SomeCallMeTim » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #52

dv_dt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After similar shenanigans from HP, I went to Brother laser printers and haven’t looked back since.

I do not understand how the other printer brands are even in business when Brother is an option. I feel like their reputation for being the best in the consumer space would have spread far and wide by now. I have been able to scan all of my documents with their MFC line directly to my Dropbox (or box or drive or onedrive) account for over 6 years now, AND Brother Web Connect automatically OCR’s them.

I have a Brother inkjet all-in-one, and it works great, BUT...

Problem is that it needs to "clean" the print heads frequently. It uses up ink every time it cleans. So if you're not printing frequently, 95% of your ink will be used up by letting the printer do its thing.

I tried just leaving it unplugged for a long time once, and sure enough the print head clogged. It took a lot of printing and cleaning (and wasted ink) before it became 99% usable again.

But the Brother B&W laser we got? It Just Works.

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

#250

Post by quercusa » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #234

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…

I think that not buying printers is the correct answer, difficult to get everyone to do it, but it is the metric most likely to change behavior. Inkjet technology is fine, it was the exploitation of it by HP which lead to copy cats that really made it ridiculous. I've got an HP inkjet wide format plotter (36" wide) that was built both before HP was all in on ink as a profit center and built by a different division (p…

I don't think I've ever seen an inkjet plotter in action. Does the paper go through a single pass? I was always fascinated by pen plotters, especially when drawing diagonal lines or changing pens.