2y ago

You didn't bought it you rented it!

I hate that everything now is a subscription service instead of buying it and do whatever you want.

471 comments

Other than the recent nonsense, this is why I cancelled Netflix and went back to pirating. Content leaves unexpectedly? Not on my Nas.
- I've taken to de-DRMing any e-books I bought from Amazon for that reason.
  Also, the "You can only view this book on 3 devices" -- yeah .... fuck off.
  Calibre + DeDRM plugin + KFX plugin. Perfectly legal too, as long as you aren't distributing them.
  
  Btw, did you know of Weightless Books and Smashwords?
  They may not have as many ebooks as Amazon, but they do offer DRM free ebooks, and may be worth keeping in mind to check before going straight to Amazon.
  
  This is the way.
- Except when I accidentally rm -rf the media folder but shhhhhhhh
- Old school pirating or new school? Last time I remember pirates was like... Napster, Limewire, Kazaa... Then went to TPB before it got raided like 8 times... What's the current? Is it still torrenting with proxies?
  
  I just got my automated pirating machine set up!
  Here's the wiki for the *arr apps!
  Radarr for movies
  Sonarr for TV shows
  Prowlarr for index management
  Optional Doplarr Discord Bot for requests
  Set up your profiles for Radarr/Sonarr to pick the quality of release you want (1080p, min/max file size, etc)
  Feed Radarr/Sonarr your qbittorrent info, nzbget & Usenet info
  They will automatically search the indexes (I use 1337x for torrents & nzbgeek for Usenet) for the files that fit your parameters, download it, and organize it.
  All you have to do is point Plex at the output folders and BAM, automated pirating.
  I even took it a step further and set up Doplarr - a Discord bot that handles requests. Now friends/family can ping the bot with their movie/show requests and it'll sync up to Radarr/Sonarr and add their requests!
  
  Oh, the high seas are very, very busy these days. Still a bit difficult for the non technical user, but there is buried treasure out there.
  
  Torrents are still around, lots of sites out there for them.
  
  Word on the street is that reddit's arr slash piracy has a pretty good guide to it in their wiki, including lists of generally trustworthy torrent sources. I of course don't torrent, because I'm terrified of legal consequences–I just browse shady but technically legal websites to stream my anime
  
  New skool is to use automation tools to grab and manage your media. You can still use torrenting but IMO using usenet is more reliable and doesn't flag your ISP. I highly recommend anyone pirating to use 'arrs https://wiki.servarr.com/
  
  I've been pirating since Napster and you're right, it's changed a lot. These days, I usually just stream from third party sites. Takes less room on your PC and is faster than downloading a torrent. Dopebox is where it's at for most stuff. 9anime if you like anime, it's better than the paid alternatives like Crunchy roll or Funamation.
  If you want to stick to torrents I've found 1337x to be the best since TPB died.
- Content leaving isn't a problem. If they give up some things they have more money to get the rights to other content, and usually by the time it leaves I've either watched it or don't want to. If it's one of the rare things I want to watch several times, I can just buy it. But cracking down on password sharing is ridiculous. They've been functioning fine with people sharing passwords. I bet the current pricing accounts for password sharing. But now people in college can't be on the family netflix? Pure greed.
  
  Content leaving is totally a problem. I’ve lost track of the number of times my spouse and I say, “Oh hey, what about we finally watch xyz that’s been in our queue for ages? Yeah that seems like a good one for Friday pizza night! …oh, it’s vanished from our queue, hooray.”
  It’s not my full time job to keep tabs on what’s coming and going from the damn entertainment service that I hope to use in my ever dwindling reserves of free time. Especially when there’s alternative means available that are not too difficult to use.
  
  This is incredibly annoying for series. Crunchyroll dropped Bleach, a series with over 350 episodes, when I was at episode ~100. A few years ago I started to manually keep track of the episodes I watched, since you lose your progress when they drop it (true for crunchyroll, prime and netflix)

Shit that should be fucking illegal, this.
- If they were not aware of it before buying then it is illegal.
  
  You don’t actually need to be aware of it. Because you said you were aware of it, when you clicked Accept on the EULA, and on page 62 of the EULA it said they have the right to disable your printer remotely at any time and for any reason.
  
  Word
- It should be. But you agreed to it. Gotta print out that child support declaration in 20 minutes before your lawyer has to go to court? Hey fuck you consumer. Have a medical emergency and need to print something to save a patient? Fuck you consumer.
  Someone should sue them for everything they are. Because they are thieves of the highest order.
  
  But you agreed to it.
  When does an agreement become null and void when the knowledge and time needed to understand the terms, and especially whether they even stand in the various jurisdictions, is simply unfeasible for a layperson to be expected to possess?
  In a similar vein, if an agreement requires a lawyer on call/retainer to interpret, what court besides a bought court would possibly uphold such a standard?
  Fwiw I'm not asking this with the expectation of you personally having the answers, but to further highlight the absurdity of many of these so-called agreements.

Third voice for a Brother. I used to work an office supply store and they were by far the most reliable printers we sold.
- I’ve had my Brother printer for several years and never had an issue. I don’t have the color one, just black and white. Would buy again.
  
  I treat my Brother laser like a rented uhaul truck and it just keeps going.
  
  I have one of the complicated brother ones that scans and prints, including double sides, in colour, and it's a tank. Works fine in Linux too. Connected or through the network.
  It even does fax, which someone, somewhere probably finds useful.
- That was because of a misunderstanding. Brother started a subscription service and people assumed that meant you had to pay a monthly fee to use the printers like with HP. Instead, it’s a toner subscription like Dollar Shave Club or Amazon’s Subscribe and Save where they auto-send a new toner at your requested interval.
  
  I use cheap Chinese knockoff toner in my Brother laser
- Saw some people posting recently they sold out also
  
  I also heard a rumor about something somewhere, that maybe something might have happened. But I'm not sure. /S
  I just installed a Brother printer for my dad, absolutely zero bullshit.
- I've had the same brother inkjet printer for 14 years now, and it still works great.

I just read an article the other day that said LG is about to start charging subscription fees for washing machines 🙄
I will go old school and start washing my clothes against a rock in the river before I'll pay a fucking subscription to use my own washing machine
- That is crazy.
  Like a damn laundromat. So is LG gonna supply water and power too? Wtf are the charging for? The right to buy their product? Lmao. Fuck off.
  Go analog. Real analog. Sticks and stones baby.
  
  The article said the subscription was for "software updates" which really seems like something they should provide for free anyway so you're really just paying for the privilege to use their precious machine that you already paid for lol
- what is the difference between a subscription and a never ending loan
  
  With a loan you actually receive money at the start.
  
  A loan usually comes with full support and warranty service for the duration of the loan. With a subscription I bet you get to pay without receiving these benefits in return.
- Yeah. I think I'd rather employ someone to wash my clothes for me than pay a subscription
- man the world is so fucked up that I was more surprised that they weren't already doing this

Every time I think printers can't get any worse, they get worse.
What's next? are they going to have to scan your anus to confirm that it's actually you printing things? I shouldn't give them ideas.
By the way, I'm sure there's a way to get into the firmware of the printer to disconnect it from that centralized service.
- Or get the brother printer while they're still good.
- What's next?
  Printed ads.
  
  Yes
  
  I would think it plays an ad on the screen and you have to touch it to start so it knows you're there and doesn't print until the ad is finished.
  
  I can picture it, if you don't want ads printed at the bottom of every page you have to subscribe.
  
  Oh god, imagine your printer waking you up at 3 am as it spits out an ad for Arby's. But hey, ink at half price!
- What’s next?
  The firmware will ask for a tip every 10 pages.
  
  Please drink a verification can
  
  I can't imagine why it wouldn't. The companies that make printers have always been scamming people with their printers and all the shitty things the printers do.
  They're designed to be shitty and expensive on purpose so that you have to call the guy to fix it and pay an enormous amount of money every time the printer stops working by design.
- If they could get away with it, they would have made paper that only works on their printer, and it would be more expensive than normal paper but you have to use it.
  
  Dymo has done that a year ago.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzSDJRC0F6c
- Why not just not allow it to connect to any internet and use wired printing?
  
  Even better!
- A whole other brown ring of quality
- Please drink verification can to continue
- Actually, someone already came up with the idea of anal fingerprinting, albeit in another context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

Ready boys? Say it with me, now.
BROTHER👏LASER👏PRINTER👏
- I love the fact that brother basically does no marketing as far as I know. They just end up shining like a diamond because they make a generally good product and everyone else around them makes absolute trash.
- Yep, totally. In the vile shit that printer business is, Brother seems to be the only brand to not be straight-up anti consumer. I have a Brother all-in-one machine at work, it works out of the box on all devices, scans with whatever app, doesn't push some bullshit custom nagware every time you print and, best of all, ACCEPTS NONAME TONERS without saying a single word of complain. It doesn't refuse to print, doesn't even mention that you may get worse quality prints (yeah right). It just prints and we don't have to think about it and I really appreciate it.
- I shit you not I have a brother laser printer that I don't even know how old it is. My dad pulled out of our basement and cleaned it up and got it running so I could use it in college back in 2009. Skip ahead to 2016 and I'm using it for the table cards at our wedding. It's 2023 and I still use it from time to time. I've only changed the toner once and cleaned it a handful of times, but that sums up the entirety of the maintenance while I've had it. I have to plug it into my computer via USB which isn't so bad. But they don't have a driver available for OSX anymore so it's now a PC only printer. I'll keep using it until it stops working or isn't compatible with any computer anymore.
- Sorry to burst your bubble but Brother are also going down the subscription path.
- No joke. I had HP and I knew Brother was painfree experience and when I was buying said HP, I completely forgot about them. Few years forward my old HP avoided destruction by sheer luck and my brother's will to try and tame it. These days I have Brother laser printer and it takes whatever you throw at it without complaints. It's so obedient am having issues accepting such behavior.
- Got it, but which printer if I want to print photos (only a hand full every one or two months)

Best printer 2023: just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it's fine - The Verge
(or a laser printer in general, Brother is just a Known Brand)
- That article was a surprisingly funny read. Thanks for sharing it.
- HP can make good printers. It has the right hardware, capabilities and price (Of the printers, not the ink) to be a very good product. It's just their obnoxiously asshole-design software that is designed to make you to keep paying for using a product you already own.
  
  Kinda reminds me of Sony when it was managed by Engineers and Sony after the Engineers in CxO positions were replaced by MBAs back in the 90s after they Movie & Music side of the business gained the upper hand over the Consumer Electronics side.
  Sure, they could still design good products and manufacture them with high quality standards ... and chose instead to make DRM-locked pieces of crap (designed with as top objective protect the IP of the Movie & Music business from all those "evil" consumer who might want to, say, listen to their music in more than one device without buying it once per device) using inferior parts than before and likelly to be manufactured in the same factory in China working for the same Taiwanese Manufacturing Outsourced as all the other crap products.
  Back in the 80s they were a byword for quality, nowadays they're just another brand.
- Can confirm. Support brother for their ethics and quality.
- The driver support for Linux is just awful. I couldn't get the Brother 7055W to work on Arch. It worked on Fedora though, but I don't have that anymore.
  
  I gave up also. The entire software experience is just shit and buggy as hell. Avoid.
  
  I've had two Brother laser printers now, in both cases drivers were packaged as either .deb or .rpm.
  I'm currently running a Brother HL-L2395DW mono multifunction laser printer under KDE Neon, and both the scanner and printer work perfectly over the network.
- Hahah, I opened the link and it's the exact model I have.
- I have this one. NEVER had an issue with it. It's now years that I use it with 3rd party cartridges without problems.

Subscriptions are out of fucking hand.
- It has been normalized by Streaming Services. Sad situation.
  
  Looks like pirating is back on the menu, boys!

What the fuck is wrong with people? It's been common knowledge that hp is trash for decades now. The whole idea of capitalism is that the bad products fail when customers go to the competitors who do a better job, but hp is not a monopoly and there are better competitors that exist, but people keep in buying HP because frankly, they are too fucking stupid. Capitalism is a lie because consumers are too stupid to pick the best products.
- The average person is not invested into printers and just needs a printer to occasionally print something. It's not something they know a lot about and in the store they see a cheap printer from a well known brand that gave them good experiences with other products. It makes total sense for them to buy it. I'm sure they will know what products/brands to avoid in other areas that are unknown to you.
  
  To add to yours, when the person who isn’t up on printers goes to a store like walmart that has 4 different HP models on the shelf ranging from $40 to $90, one cannon for $80, and one brother for $120, they will be much more apt to get the HP because they just don’t know.
- My hp laptop works fine, but yeah hp printers are terrible. They are very slow to print, and the ink was quite expensive.
  
  I don't have any experience with their laptops, but they pissed me off so much with their printers that I've written off their entire brand. Even if their other stuff is really good, I'm fine with writing them off entirely just out of spite.
- The simplest proof that the Homo Economicus human model used in the mathematical models that justify Free Market Theory is complete total bollocks is that the Marketing that has no mention of the qualities of the product whatsoever, actually works (perfumes and cars are prime examples but there are tons of examples for consumer tech also).
  That and some people from Behavioural Economics (the only part of that domain which is actually scientific) have shown with various experiments that there are lots of ways in which people are not rational in their economic decisions, hence not at all the "pure personal upside maximizer" which is the Homo Economicus model.
  People sticking to a well-known name such as HP is probably down to the effect of familiarity (at times known as "name recognition") - maybe one of the biggest irrationalities in human economic behaviour and one of the pathways most commonly exploited by marketing.
  
  And for example, the products that sell the most on amazon are not the best products, they're the ones that give amazon the biggest advertising budget.
- Most people just buy a printer, they're not doing research on the subject. And if they're not using computers day to day, or for work, they're even less likely to know what shit hp is up to.
- There was a time when Hewlet Packard products were the best, them it became HP and...
  
  I was there, but that was decades ago.
- If you only print something once every couple of months I only need a cheap printer and dont care if the ink is a bit more expensice since I never use it. Though I admit my blood pressure always rises trying to get the thing to work
  
  I bought a brother laser printer and have had no issues with it, and I'm still using the original toner years and hundreds of pages later. They're more expensive up front but they're not that much more expensive. The entry level brother laser printer is only ~$100, and compared to HP, by the time you buy 2 ink cartridges you'll have lost any savings you made on the printer itself. It is absolutely not cheaper to buy HP. If I'd have done that I'd have spent more on HP ink alone by now than the entire brother printer which I haven't had to replace the toner for even though the one it's sold with isn't totally full.
  
  Ink jets burn ink even if you dont print anything, with their periodic "cleaning cycles". That or their nozzles jam if you dont print often enough. They can make really high quality prints, but I'd never buy one again. Lasers can sit for months and they still pop out perfect prints every time.

HP printers are now pure scamming dog shit. The HP printer division must have been taken over by criminals.
The first laser printer I worked with was a HP 4L and it was fantastic. So fantastic, that we implemented it company wide, and they were close to immortal. The last of them got killed off when we got follow-me print.
If you want a decent laser printer today, stay clear of HP and get a Brother instead.
- Five years ago people were saying the opposite. My old Brother printer broke after 2 ink refills. I've had an HP for 2 years now and I've never had an issue with it. I was genuinely surprised people were trashing HP lately.
  
  I've been hearing brother laser printers are the best workhorses for like 10 years consistently.

I've been saying for about 15 years now -- you'd have to be a masochist to buy HP printers. Why do people keep enabling these shits? You just encourage them to be even worse. Don't stand for even a little of their bullshit and they will change or die. You make a noose for your own neck.
- HP have been on my shitlist for so long. Everyone needs to have a shitlist. Anti consumer behaviour should never be forgotten.
  On a side note, Vodafone are also on my shitlist. I did give them a reprieve once only to be reminded of why they were on my shitlist.
  People, get your shit together.
  
  Anti consumer behaviour should never be forgotten.
  I still don't buy Sony products after that time they booby trapped their CDs to install malware on everyone's computers.
- This is true if everybody do it, otherwise nothing will change. As we know there are too many people on the planet and too many idiots among them that will buy these products and so company can't get away with everything nowadays. Look at Facebook, Twitter, reddit, hp. In my country there's a huge food company that put fucking poison in baby formulas, and killed some of them (and others with lifetime growth issues) and guess what? People stopped buying from them for 2 years, they pulled through and now they are one of the top companies.
- People are still buying HP printers because there are no alternatives. In my experience Epson is the worst. The are all the same, and we have no alternative other than letting them fuck with us. And they know it.
  
  Brother has been amazing. Good products, manufacturer support for all operating systems, no subscription bullshit.
  
  No, I think that's blatantly wrong.
  Idk if Brother is the best no-bullshit alternative, but it's definitely supposed to be a no-bullshit alternative.
  Even if we had no other alternative, we could crowd-fund one.
  
  I've never used on owned an Epson but I've been hearing wonders about the EcoTank line.
  Affordable, lasting, dirt cheap ink, user replaceable printing heads, also cheap, and linux friendly.
- Funny thing is, I know all of this and their bad behavior. I needed a new printer, ordered it but they didn't have it in stock so they asked me to change my order and offered HP with extra toner and all that. Half asleep I didn't even think twice. It was good price, extra toner.
  From day one, nothing but problems until I broke the spell last year and got a Brother printer. Night and day in terms of quality and obedience.
  I assume that's the case with many people. Cheap printer available right now or some local deals make it even better looking. Someone who doesn't know better like mom or pop buys it and there it is, pain. Then they realize what they have done and perhaps sell the damn thing, so pain jumps on someone else who just needed a cheap printer.
- I've bought HP a few times, because the new printer was about the same price as buying new ink cartridges. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just being real. And I'm not proud
  
  That's how they get ya. The high cost of being poor

Printer company are one of the biggest legalized scammer we currently have. Out water and some ink they make huge amount of Profit.
They are the Definition of making Gold out of shit.

Their laptops and desktops are terribly cheap too. Just avoid HP all together is everyone's best bet.

So they have all these printers connected to their servers I guess. Nice. Not a security risk at all.
Best printer I've owned has been Brother. But hp is always at the top of reviews, because hp pays them off I guess.

A shame to hear how far HP has fallen. Back in the day they had some solid, workhorse laser printers that delivered for years with no issues and pretty good toner efficiency. Based on what I've read here, I'm not likely to buy another.

Homeowner-targeted inkjet printers are evil, especially from HP. NEVER buy one that works a subscription into the purchase. They are garbage, and can disable your cartridges if you cancel your subscription.
- HP is a horrible company. They make things up just to make life difficult for consumers. Everyone should boycott them I make sure none of the hardware the company I work for is HP as well.
- But your subscription to what exactly ?
  
  Giving HP money. Protection money. Because you know, it'd be a shame if for some unfortunate and unrelated reason you couldn't print on your printer anymore. Accidents just happen. Every day.
  
  Because fuck you, that's why. -HP
  
  Ink cartridges. Instead of paying up front, they send you cartridges for 'free' and automatically dispatch replacements whenever they get low (or if you have a problem like they get so gummed up the head clean can't fix them) If you don't want the subscription, you have to buy your own carts retail, then it's just like a 'traditional' printer.
  The sub itself isn't (in my opinion) scummy just a value proposition. What is a bit scummy is that the carts that come with the printer are yours, but you can enroll them in the sub service. You can do that the day you buy it or right before they run out. In theory they're supposed to revert to 'owned' if the sub is cancelled, but I've heard there can be hoops to jump through. The carts that come with the printer are tiny compared to either retail or rental so won't last long either way.
  
  It looks like this subscription may be for their "smart" printers. So the subscription would be for the connection to phone service. Why you'd need a smart printer is beyond me but they apparently think there is a market for it.

"You'll own nothing and you'll be happy"
I guess this sentence is already became the reality in some countries if you can't even buy a god damn printer without it locking you out.
- Terminal capitalism looks a lot like communism.

My mom's Amazon Halo that counts steps just shut off because they ended the service. I do not trust anything that requires live service at this point.

nobody should support companies that place restrictions on their hardware for RANSOM

This is generally for a business lease contract with HP. I've never seen this done to a printer the person buys outright, only for contracted leased "pay-per-use" printers.
- HP does an ink subscription thing. They will try to trick you into it, too, so I'm sure lots of people sign up without realizing just by trying to use their printer software. Anyway, that ink stops working if you stop paying.
  
  Yeah I looked into it, some models require the HP+ subscription to work. That's only on some of their loss leader models but still misleading, so that's still shitty
  
  They come with a cartridge and "six months free ink" if you register.
  But if you register and then six months later realize you never use it and you cancel...
  They lock the cartridge
  
  Yeah no thanks on ink subscription. Also, my printer still works great... but HP forgot how to write software apparently so now I use a 3rd party android print app. Ugh. I'm kind of fed up with the HP experience lately.
  
  Yes. Co-worker got a super cheap printer, and then tried to cancel the ink subscription. turns out he couldn't just buy ink from them, and his printer was useless.
- Yeah. It happened to me too. And they wouldn’t let me use the full ink cartridge I had because it was tied to the subscription. I had to go buy a completely separate ink cartridge and disconnect some other thing to print a stupid form. Fuck HP

Well I guess I will keep my 13 years old b/w laser printer then. Still works like a charm. There is no dried ink, no DRM, nothing. And it just works even it has not turned on for a year.
- Honestly just having a laser/led printer removes so many of the problems with printers. All inkjets should be replaced.
  
  Idk about LED printers but ink jet is better than laser for printing photos. For general use I think laser should be the standard over ink jet, definitely.

Buy a brother printer instead. They may be a bit more expensive, but their easy mantainance and the amount of bootleg ink you can find online makes it worth the extra price.
- Last time this came up, people were quick to bring up brother, and others (and that was new) to mention that brother started to do the same crap (limiting 3rd party toners). So I really don't know what to think of them anymore.
  I could be in the market for a b&w laser printer/scanner soon so I'll keep an eye on replies here.
  
  Brother pulls similar shit. My brother printer day my ink is out, and prints shittty pages, but the test page it prints is absolutely gorgeous.
  
  In my experience laser Brothers are still less fussy and way more reliable and durable than competing brands.
  
  Yep, my Brother is basically useless because it refuses to recognize 3rd party ink cartridges, I'm really angry about it.
  
  Do Epson printers have DRM on the ink?

I hate these things. I took one out to an abandoned reservoir and blew it to pieces with a .12 gauge shotgun. Very therapeutic.
- "PC load letter? What the fuck does that mean?"
  
  It was .12 gauge triple ought buckshot Office Space.
  I would never buy another HP printer, except for target practice.

++ for brother. Still running my mfc j470 ink jet purchased in 2013. I purchased it because of their support of Linux and Android. I've NEVER used official ink cartridges besides what came with it. it's printed 6900 pages

I still use the same printer I got in 2004. Hp color laser jet 2600n. Highly recommend. It’s large and loud and toner is pricey. But toner is widely available, you can easily get 2,000+ pages out of a toner cart, I’ve generally found it to have native driver support in macOS and Linux at this point, it has an Ethernet jack so you can print over network, etc. the toner is also much more reasonable if you only print black and white, the $$$ is if you change all the toner carts at once.
It does have a toner tracking chip but you can override that in the firmware. they used to actually allow you to do such a thing!! It’s not even like a secret developer menu thing, it’s just an option you can pick although iirc it warns you print quality may suffer. or you can just buy blank chips for a few bucks, it’s just a little plastic tab that you break off and then you slide the old one out and the new one in. But that’s more for if you plan to refill the toner carts which I do not recommend; it’s a messy process where you have to burn/cut a hole in the cart, refill with powder, then seal it with tape. I tried it a few times and it was a huge mess and lead to leaky carts; not worth saving the $50 bucks or whatever
I’m pretty sure in like 2040 my house will be an anachronism of old tech like this. It’s already mostly there with some notable exceptions. If I have to subscribe I won’t buy it; if I buy it and find out I need to subscribe I’ll return it or sell it. I will pay month by month for items that justify a need for ongoing payment (like I pay once a year for Usenet access). But I don’t think I am in the target demo for basically any company lol
- FWIW I've an $100 brother laser (2140) the same age. The toner cartridges are $20 on eBay. I've bought two or three in the last 20 years.
  
  When I last did a TCO analysis of printers brothers came out on top by a big margin.
- black toner is cheap, everything else is expensive as hell. But yes, toner printers are probably your best option for cheap printing.
  
  Sure but I mean to accentuate the idea that older printers don’t have these stupid drms. Frankly I would prefer something newer that isn’t the size of a mini fridge and sounds like an industrial copier but I’ll take that over a printer that requires persistent WiFi and my debit card to print.
  Pretty sad that in 20 years we went from a printer that had a chip that tracked toner use so that you could see how much was left but still easily gave you the option to say “ignore that and keep printing” to printers that arbitrarily create e waste by bricking cartridges because they’re past the assigned page count or expiry date despite having ink/toner left.
- Same, except it's an Officejet 6600 from early 2010. I use third party ink cartridges in it. Fuck those expensive "genuine" ink cartridges!
- Pretty sure toner is cheaper than what HP charges for ink.
  I had an ancient laserjet for years and HP stopped making toner. Wished I had kept it and used 3rd party toner but I heard about others not having great experiences with that.
  That said our old OfficeJet 8600 is still going great and no subscriptions.
  How it is legal to charge a subscription for a device like that is beyond me. Need to pass state laws to stop that bullshit I think. That's the only way that might actually be remotely feasible.
- As this year has progressed I’ve become increasingly disillusioned by technology. Shit just stops working, random upgrades, and adverts invading my search results, the list is endless. I have an LG washer and needed to install an app to diagnose the problem. The Wi-Fi chip took multiple attempts to connect, and then the app required countless permissions to anything and everything. My work is making me travel and the hotel doesn’t have a check in desk, alas I need to install and app and upload my photo ID… ffs!!
  There was a recent episode of Always Sunny where Denis takes a mental health day. It can’t be more accurate! I am so over being harassed by technology. To some degree I invited it into my life, I’ll own that. But I think I’m slowly becoming a willful Luddite and I’m absolutely fine with that!
- I have a 1320n. When I bought toner about 5 years ago and it was $20 for third party, works fine. Every few months I flip it on, print a few pages (sometimes from my phone), and flip it off again. Ezpz.
  
  Third party toner is usually fine, refilling is where I’ve had issues. Although years ago I did get a super cheap third party toner at micro center that leaked like crazy. I had to return it and clean the whole printer, was a nightmare. But aside from that one incident never had an issue

I switched to one of the Epson EcoTanks after the HP Ink got super expensive (Over $150 to replace all 4 cartridges). Printer was $$$ but the ink in bottles ($15 a pop, Costco sells them all in a pack for $40) is cheap enough that for the in-frequent printing we do at home (My partner uses it more than me for making buttons and stuff)
- But all printers have page counters, even the ecotanks...
  
  Do tell, I'm curious to learn more. Does it really matter if it knows how many pages you've printed? It's not going to magically tell you you can't print anymore when you can see that there's still ink in there
  
  Been running my ecotank for almost three years as my business printer. Burned though boxes of paper. Refilled black once. I'm not sure what you're complaining about here?

At this point I'm afraid to update anything because it will turn into a debilitating subscription fee. One is whatever, but 50 of them is insane, and that's kinda where it's going. Monthly fee for breathing next.
- Remember when mr krabs tried to make them pay for every little thing while at work

My in laws bought one of those damn HP’s. It had an issue 1 month in and required the special setup cartridges to re-run the wizard. But those had already been used up and discarded. It wouldn’t f-ing work with regular cartridges, and their subscription wouldn’t let them get more setup carts. Literal 1 month old e waste
- What is this "setup cartridge" and who thought it would be a good idea?
  
  Apparently the device setup wizard can only be ran with the special low volume cartridges that come with it. And if they did still have those, the wouldn’t have worked since they were out of ink. Total scam setup to extract money out of un knowing consumers.

I have absolutely no idea why anyone buys inkjet printers or cartridge razors. There are perfectly good alternatives that don't try and force you into a subscription model.
- I've been wanting a laser printer for home use, can you recommend one?
  Edit: color printer, preferably with a scanner.
  
  I'm not across the market sadly as I'm rocking an old Samsung colour laser that's no longer available. In 15 years I've changed the toner cartridges once. It's USB only, but a Raspberry Pi running CUPS converted it to a network printer.
  My advice would be to go second hand on older laser printers. I just use my phone to scan documents these days.
  
  How much color printing are you doing? We went with a B&W Laser because we didn't feel like paying the premium to move to a color laser printer but we don't do enough printing in color to really justify it either. Usually if we want something in color, it's photos to put in frames so it makes more sense to just send them to wallgreens or shutterfly or someting like that. If it's documents we need in color, we just send them to staples. It's not frequent enough and the money we save on just using toner (haven't bought toner since 2019) makes up for any small cost increase per page on color prints.
- Desktop laser printers are cheap nowadays, and they're sooooo much better, at least for B&W.
  The last time I used an inkjet that wasn't straight bullshit was last century.
  DE razors are great and you can get a year's worth of blades for like $10. That said, they're definitely harder to use than cartridges. There's a learning curve but IMO it's worth it. I wonder if there's a wetshaving community here on Lemmy yet.
- I buy third party ink cartridges for my HP. No issue.

It's always funny to see content creators you watch appear randomly somewhere else Wendigoon is a great long form content creator for unfiction and conspiracy theories and here he is talking about a printer.

Business class laser printers are where it's at. I don't get why people still buy inkjets.

THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW
- Yeah, through an HP's building window
  Epson, HP are assholes... Japanese are brothers
  
  I have an HP Printer... Actually 2. I didn't want another HP Printer, and I especially did not want another InkJet Printer. Yet we were persuaded into a new printer we've used like 20 times since we bought it.
  
  Haven't had a problem with my second hand Epson ink tank.

Okay so I see all this talk about ducky printers but if I want one that's not trying to guck me over which would that be?
- Brother printers are fantastic. They cost a but more upfront but actually work
  
  Additional hot take: get a laser printer for your normal documents and just get photos printed somewhere else. The money you'd spend buying 4x6 photos on someone else's ink and paper would probably be less than you'll pay for color ink unless you're an absolute photo printing maniac. And a laser printer toner cartridge will last you like 1,000+ pages.
  
  Yep, I bought a Brother laser printer for $120 a few years ago. I don't use it super often, but it's been reliable and easy to use whenever I need it. I've never had to replace the toner. It just works.
  
  Needed something to print the occasional document for bureaucracy stuff, and I also got a Brother printer a while ago. Used, laser (very important for good value imo), 100 bucks. An older model, black-and-white but with wifi support. Didn't need to register my license, create a cloud account or whatever other shit companies come up with these days, I could just turn it on and it worked.
  
  They're incredibly reliable. I've had the same Brother laser printer for a good 15 years now. Possibly longer. Old enough that there's no wifi or bluetooth options, but it's a network printer because it has ethernet.
- Second the recommendation for a Brother. I've rarely had problems with them. Above all do NOT buy an HP printer because they come with every form of nickel-and-dime known to mankind.
  Alternatively, for the once in a blue moon that the average person needs to actually print things in the modern day, bring your local library a fiver and use their printer. This is the way I do things, because I rarely ever need to print a document. When I do, it's a ten minute drive and a five dollar or less cost and then I don't have to bother with owning a printer.
  But in general, Brother is a good brand, and a laser printer will be less hassle and easier to manage than an inkjet, but will have a bit higher purchase cost.
  
  Yes on the Libraries! Libraries are often incredibly cheap for printing, and most of them have an online uploading tool so you can print things from your home computer or phone without any hassle. Plus, at least at the library I work at, we have incredibly high quality printers and your docs / photos will come out a lot better than how they would if you were at home, as well as a scanner that can give you a 600dpi TIFF file
  Just please try not to hand us a twenty for something that costs 1/100th of that - we often don't have enough small bills to make change. (Or do and put it on your account for later, if that's an offered option, or better yet donate the remainder 😉)
  
  A lot of my printing happens when parents visit. They love to print everything. I'm much more likely to use the scanner on my Brother printer than actually print.
  
  In Germany there are a lot of stores that let you use their printer for 10ct per page. Is this not the case in the US (or wherever you live)?
- Brother ist the way to go. Also OK for Linux in my experience
  
  From my experience, printer support on Linux is often better than on Windows because all the drivers are included in the kernel and you don't have to go driver hunting on obscure websites.
  
  The new brothers also work fine with chrome os.
  
  I just got around to setting up my Brother MFC-2750DW in OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I was prepared for a long process, but Brother publish Linux drivers for it and the whole setup took about 5 minutes. Works perfectly over wifi. Easiest Linux printer setup I've ever done. And it's happy with third-party cartridges too.
- Most hp models are fine, I have a laser jet I swear by.

you will own nothing and you'll be happy

Fuck HP.
Source: my dad worked at HP so most of my computers and printers growing up were HP.
- it was an amazing company that did legendary, pioneering research and development and made outstanding research tools. the HP of today is the result of 50 years of mergers, acquisitions, conglomeration, and violent shittification.
  
  The HP you mention still exists today as Hewlett-Packard Enterprises, a separate company from HP Inc, which is the consumer-facing brand. It's very similar to what Motorola did in splitting into enterprise and consumer companies.

buy laser printers. ink is pretty cheap and as we refill cartridge. i have a hp and and never suffer these subscription shit.

Fuck HP

Back in my days we were able to purchase the printers
- You can still purchase your own HP ink cartridges, it's only the optional subscription cartridges that require an ongoing payment.
  Whether it's good value is an exercise for each individual, but the monthly costs usually work out less than buying them outright, unless you're an exceptionally low user and can stretch a set of retail carts over two years (without them drying up)
  
  If cancelling an ink subscription disables your printer, then you don't own that printer.

learn to print to pdf and save the file. can always print but even better you can email it etc. brother laser scanner is best I've owned. son bought me one of these, "Brother MFC-L2710DW series Printer" to replace a still working brother laser 2170w, 10 yo. I don't print a lot but wife prints every receipt which end up in the trash

Looks like I'm not changing my almost 10 year HP LaserJet printer after all..
- Picked up a brother monochrome laser printer 3 years ago. I'd never get anything else, it's a printing beast.
  
  Same here. Granted, I don't print a lot, but maybe that's exactly why my Brother monochrome is so good for me. It cost three times as much as a basic colour inkjet with a flatbed scanner, but at least it's reliable whenever I do need it. It simply does what it's supposed to, and it's fast.
- You can try, I recently went to buy Ink for my old HP ink jet and found it hard to find them in stock. Seems they stopped making them. A perfectly good printer is nearly useless because they stopped making cartridges

Maybe not the same, as its more of a service contract. At work, we have had a site which has been closed for 2 years. for 2 whole years, every week the vending machine company arrive, try to get in, can't, ring us, and we say "that site is closed".
Well we finally after 2 years got them to remove that site from their system?
Their response? to remove ALL food from ALL vending machines at all our sites, to remove the coffee machines, and to remove the water coolers. The water coolers are especially egregious, as they just sit there doing nothing. they are from tap water, so not even replacing bottles etc.
Sometimes subscriptions are useful. I wish the BBC TV licence in the UK was a subscription. I cannot justify spending £150 on a licence for an entire year, just to watch a month of shows. but other times it sucks. I just want Microsoft office. I don't care if it will cost me £200. Right now my favourite game is subscription based, but i don't think i can justify the £9.99 a month, or £50 for a whole year. £50 for lifetime access? maybe.
- LibreOffice has more functionality and it's actually free
- With the current situation, no way you are getting a lifetime access. Companies have discovered that people actually pay for subscriptions even if they don't add anything worthwhile to keep you renewing.
  You are just renting and there is no option to buy.
- You can still buy liscenses for office. I just bought a key off a shady vendor for $30 and have a fully activated, non subscription office 2022
  
  ...until Microsoft decides to disable this obviously hacked Office

What are good printer companies? Fuck HP and Epson
- Get a Brother laser. Don't bother with color.
  
  people always say this, but 95% of what i print is index and reference cards that need colour :( I would love to get a B&W printer, but i need the colours.
- Brother
- HP certainly needs fucked with a pineapple, Epson otoh, I'm not so sure, I have two eco-tank printers and have had no issues with them whatsoever.
  
  I have an ecotank too. No BS subscription shenanigans, painless to get it working. What impresses me is the lack of it breaking if it sits even months between uses, usually not even needing to be cleaned.
  
  Epson are ok as long as you remember they're descended from Tamagochis. Leave them alone for a month and they'll sometimes clog up for ever.
- My Brother printer has been going for about 14 years, so I recommend them.
  
  OK, but what printer does your brother use?
- Canon laser printers
- Brother used to be a holdout, but they probably aren't anymore.
  
  If you get a Brother, it’s best to go with laser, as the toner will last ages. If you’re on a budget, the Brother inkejet I have gives zero shits what cartridges I put in there, as long as they’re the right shape. I usually have to clean the contacts on top of the cartridges before inserting like it’s an NES, though.
- I have an Epson ink tank one and it's 100 times better than HP. Is Epson really that bad?
  
  I had a terrible experience with epson
- Buy a slightly older one. I have a cannon now, it's works great. I don't print all that much anyway, so I'm not too knowledgeable about printers tbh.

HP Printers is definitely one of the worst printers right now; I hate you need a account to use your HP printers
- You can still run the old software without account, as long as you never upgrade. Some third party file hosters keep it around. We got an HP at work and I refuse to give them even my business email.
- HP consumer stuff is crap.
  Hp business/enterprise stuff is passable. HP is also fairly good when it comes to warranty work.
  We've got a bunch of places with HP printers. Only one out of about 100 has been a complete lemon. In the past few years.
  Fuji and Lexmark business ones are good as well.

Even worse, if you subscribe to the ink service with an HP printer, it will update the firmware. But if you decide to cancel the service, they don't change the firmware so you now own a brick.

Can you homebrew a printer? Maybe fake responses to phone-homes?
- You probably can
- Yes you can... but you have to live with the results of your craftsmanship.
  I want an arduino BIC based printer

It's so cool that we live in a world where you can 3d print a gun more reliably than you can 2d print an insurance card

I got a printer where I fill up the ink tank myself. Fuck all these other printers.

Meanwhile my laser Kyocera prints full color full duplex and doesn't try any funny business.

This should be illegal, hell I have a TP-Link router and it’s got a subscription model for the features, that a decade ago were basic features of a router that you’re spending hundreds of dollars on. Unless we make it unpopular from a media/social standpoint, they’ll keep it up. Too make it worse, the router won’t even allow you to manually choose your own channels, you have to let it decide for you. Even if you have an IT background and can decipher the better channel, it decides to choose heavily trafficked channels on all bands. Let me make me own mistakes and learn, I don’t want to be forced like an invalid in a nursing home.

I don't get how this is legal, and my guess is that it isn't in EU and many other countries that aren't USA.
Anyone ever heard one of these stories from EU?
- They offer it in the EU. They don't force you to choose the subscription, you can also just choose to buy the cartridges at the store outright if you want to. I don't really understand the big hoopla about being offered that choice.
  
  If you sign up for the subscription, the printer is "adjusted" to disallow store bought cartridges while it is enrolled
  
  The big hoopla is that in some cases they disable your printer so you can't buy your ink independently. That's the part I suspect is illegal in EU. Obviously subscriptions aren't illegal.

Welcome to the future you now have to pay a sub or learn how to jail break your printer to get full use of it owner ship is almost dead folks time to break up big printer so you can refill your ink cartridges and print without a subscription

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