[HN Gopher] Forced to sell chipless ink cartridges, Canon tells ...
___________________________________________________________________
Forced to sell chipless ink cartridges, Canon tells customers how
to bypass DRM
Author : ryzvonusef
Score : 321 points
Date : 2022-01-09 09:22 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (boingboing.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (boingboing.net)
| HPsquared wrote:
| There goes the business model!
| Hamuko wrote:
| Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29850987
| perlgeek wrote:
| > The instructions appear to be straightforward--for the models I
| checked all you have to do is ignore onerous error messages
|
| Nothing to see here, move along...
| Normille wrote:
| Exactly. As per my longer rantlet elsewhere in these comments.
| It's total bollox. My Canon printer won't print if it doesn't
| recognise an ink cartridge as being kosher. End of story. The
| only error message you can ignore and still continue to print
| is the one about 'ink may have run out'.
| enonevets wrote:
| Switched to a Brothers printer well over a decade ago that uses
| toner instead of ink and couldn't be happier.
| franga2000 wrote:
| Every time there's talk of printers on HN someone inevitably
| praises Brother, so there must be something to it. I'm getting
| really sick of HP's unnecessary and horrible software so once
| my MFP inevitably dies due to some minor but entirely unfixable
| issue, I'll definitely be looking into Brother's stuff.
| paco3346 wrote:
| I'm all aboard the Brother laser train as well. It truly is
| just as "it just works" as everyone says it is.
| jessriedel wrote:
| I bought two HP printers, hated them for the standard
| reasons, then read HN comments praising Brother printers,
| bought two of those, and have since been very happy.
|
| This experience led me to permanently distrust Wirecutter
| recommendations, as they (currently and for many years) have
| listed HP as their #1 recommendation for both lasers and
| inkjets.
| katbyte wrote:
| Got a small b+w brother printer for a couple 100 last year
| and it's been great. Wired in with lan, everything can print
| to it. Solid "just works" experience.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| I switched to a Brother printer not only because of the
| toner/ink issue, but because it was the only model which
| afforded a straightforward USB printer. No useless bells and
| whistles, not even WiFi, which I neither need/nor want in a
| printer. It has been the best printer I ever bought.
| FractalParadigm wrote:
| I have a similar printer, the HL2240. Bought it for uni
| probably 7 years ago now and it just keeps soldiering on.
| Nothing but USB for input, which admittedly has caused some
| headache since my spouse and I use it regularly and needed a
| good central place for it. However, that problem is very
| quickly remedied with CUPS on a Raspberry Pi.
| Siira wrote:
| My Brother printer's Bonjour server is wonky, and sometimes
| the only way it works is if I myself start advertising its IP
| on Bonjour. Even that doesn't work perfectly, e.g., double-
| sided printing does not work.
| maratc wrote:
| With Brother printer here, WiFi works to print straight from
| iPhones and Androids. This works excellent for apps that
| otherwise make you mail a pdf to yourself.
|
| The initial WiFi setup was done straight from the printer
| using buttons. Never asked to install any driver. Hands down
| the best one I've ever had.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| I have an EPSON MFP, had the exact same experience. Their
| mobile app integrates with everything I need and the amount
| of control I have over printing settings is great.
|
| They introduced recharging cartridges, dropping ink prices
| by an order of magnitude, while still keeping ink quality
| very high. Third party ink quality was always hard to
| predict, I prefer relying on the manufacturer's.
|
| I'm happy with their approach.
| maratc wrote:
| > the exact same experience. Their mobile app
|
| The experience is different: Brother doesn't have any
| mobile app, which is an additional reason I like them.
| beeboop wrote:
| Entering a long wifi password with two buttons is a real
| freaking pain on it though
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| All of the brother printers I've owned have had ethernet
| so I just plug them into the network -- no wifi problems
| then either.
|
| Wired networks are so much better than wifi, so anytime I
| have walls/ceilings open for renovations, I always come
| in after the contractors leave to run some ethernet wires
| for future use. After a couple of renovations I've got
| some really useful runs for hardwiring some of the things
| I use most: TVs, printers, and an extra wireless access
| point in my garage for extra range.
| mod wrote:
| I have what sounds like the same one, at my business. My
| employees frequently print things from their phones, which
| saves me a lot of hassle printing it for them.
|
| I also love it, and hvae set up the wireless twice on the
| machine, like you say.
| hughrr wrote:
| I use HP toner and expense it :)
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| Same... but i still get low level ink warnings when using non
| brother cartridges which is slightly annoying
| praptak wrote:
| Sadly, not my experience. I bought a Brother HL-L3210CW an my
| advice is to avoid it.
|
| Cartridges have chips and the printer randomly stops
| recognizing the third party ones. The official service provider
| told me it's the cartridges and the solution is to buy original
| ones at over 3x the price.
|
| I am not a happy customer.
| jessriedel wrote:
| Hmm, I have been using generic toner in Brother DCPL2540DW
| and HL-L2370DWXL laser printers for years without issue.
|
| My vague impression is that Brother printers try to detect
| whether a cartridge is for the correct printer model, but not
| whether the cartridge is Brother brand. So long as the
| generic cartridge has a chip that says "I am designed for
| this printer", it should work.
|
| (The worst they do is advise you on the website to buy
| "genuine Brother ink" because of the increased risk of jams,
| cloggings, etc with generics. Im sure this is overplayed, but
| its not an altogether imaginary risk.)
|
| Is it possible that your generic cartridge is just crummy?
| There really are a ton of Chinese generic cartridge brands,
| and it would not be surprising if some are crap. Maybe try a
| different brand of generic?
| praptak wrote:
| I cannot rule this out. This happened twice so far, with a
| different cartridge brand each time.
|
| Also, the last time two slots failed at once, or in a very
| short timespan (black and yellow). Unfortunately I don't
| remember which slot failed when it happened for the first
| time.
|
| So, the data _suggests_ it 's the printer but as always,
| more data is needed.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Brothers, and never looked back after 15 years.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Same. B&W laser Brother MFC-7320 here since I don't know how
| many years. Once in a while a new toner and the thing keeps
| happily cranking.
| ekianjo wrote:
| yeah and they have decent Linux support too.
| phoronixrly wrote:
| I don't think shipping a binary CUPS filter you're just
| supposed to trust counts as good Linux support. Never buying
| a printer without a fully working PPD without blob
| dependencies.
| calcifer wrote:
| You seem to be conflating Linux support with FOSS support.
| They have nothing to do with each other.
| phoronixrly wrote:
| Even if I was, don't you think that good Linux support
| would require the drivers running on architectures
| different from x86? For example you can't use this
| printer on a Raspberry Pi: https://support.brother.com/g/
| b/downloadtop.aspx?c=us_ot&lan...
|
| You get a choice of a deb or an rpm packaging the
| following blob:
|
| > brcupsconfpt1: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386,
| version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter
| /lib/ld-linux.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.2.5, stripped
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| You can normally use a generic PCL or PS driver (or
| another brother cups driver), if it's a Brother laser
| printer. If it's an inkjet, YMMV.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > For example you can't use this printer on a Raspberry
| Pi
|
| very uncommon use case...
| joepie91_ wrote:
| Not really. RPi printing server setups are somewhat
| common.
| tadfisher wrote:
| Brother MFCs support IPP Everywhere (aka AirPrint), so
| you shouldn't need drivers in the first place. If the UI
| doesn't let you use the IPP Everywhere driver, you can
| add it with lpadmin -p myprinter -E -v
| "ipp://<address>/ipp/port1" -m everywhere
|
| The printer's web interface should give you the exact
| IPP/AirPrint URL to use.
| mshook wrote:
| So what kind of printer do you buy then?
| syshum wrote:
| I have been printer free / paperless for over a decade
| now. I am not sure why printers are even needed anymore
| wyclif wrote:
| What if you need to print pamphlets, booklets, or place
| cards? What about your academic thesis?
| syshum wrote:
| I do not have a need for any of those things....
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| So what's the point of your commentary in this entire
| thread at all then? You're lack of need for printing
| serves no one except yourself in this thread about people
| and their printing needs/issues.
| syshum wrote:
| Because in every case where a person says they "need" to
| print one can fine a more economical, more environmental,
| and easier solution to printing.
|
| None of the examples highlighted in the comment I
| responded to should be required for ANYONE to print, not
| just me. Electronic versions of each of them are better,
| more effective, cheaper, and have less environmental
| impact
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's just not true. You can have your opinion, but you
| are not in a place to dictate what is best for anyone
| except yourself. There are many reasons people prefer not
| reading electronic items.
|
| One example is all of the missing animal posters people
| hand out and distribute.
|
| Also, QR codes providing quick access to some electronic
| info is nice, but you still have to print them. Also,
| random QR codes placed somewhere are not going to get
| scanned. You must also print other things along side them
| to give enough info on why someone should scan the code.
|
| I feel like I'm just feeding a troll at this point
| syshum wrote:
| I scan electronic QR Codes all the time. For displays and
| Such eINK has come a long way.
|
| I remember not too long ago gas stations used printed
| cards to show the price of gas, now they use electronic
| signs...
|
| I see digital signage systems that have QR Codes displays
| for customers to customers to scan all the time.
|
| Menu Boards at fast food places have largely been
| replaced with Digital signs.
|
| I really can not think of a single thing in the world
| that is not better in electronic form...
|
| > you are not in a place to dictate what is best for
| anyone except yourself.
|
| Make up your mind, when I speak of what impacts me then I
| am selfish and not considerate of others, when I speak
| for others I am talking out of turn...
|
| You can not have it both ways
| throwaway2331 wrote:
| Go to a print shop/Staples.
|
| Whatever you're printing will look 100% better/more
| professional if you get someone else to print it using
| commercial tools.
|
| Printers are cool if you need to quickly print some
| black-and-white papers in a jiffy. But anything more than
| that (and even that) is never going to compare to getting
| it properly printed.
|
| It's like filming video with your phone: it will always
| pale in comparison to an actual, video-oriented camera.
| wyclif wrote:
| What if I don't want to go out, or what if I don't care
| about quality and what I need isn't about quality
| anyway...just wanting to print an essay on paper that I
| can use for pen edits?
| throwaway2331 wrote:
| Then buy a printer, man. I said it right there:
|
| > Printers are cool if you need to quickly print some
| black-and-white papers in a jiffy.
| Karellen wrote:
| Local library / commercial print shop.
|
| If your yearly volume is low enough (and specialised
| enough), you can come out ahead even if the price per
| page is relatively high.
| [deleted]
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| One of the posters wondered why disruptive billions
| aren't being made by new printer companies.
|
| Well not that long ago look what happened with disruptive
| scooter and ebike rental.
|
| Those things piled up faster than landfills could handle
| it.
|
| With printers billions were already made in the 20th
| century.
|
| There are so many thousands of tonnes of surplus printers
| at any one time, a huge percentage of which have not yet
| been landfilled, that all I use are rescued printers and
| I'm in a business where the only deliverable product is
| paperwork.
|
| Even though I am the pioneer of the paperless approach.
|
| Anyway, recently things like the discontinued Brother
| HL-2270 series are more common as discards but have
| plenty of life left in the hardware.
|
| When I got one complete with a couple new toner refills,
| it was a good time to add it to one of my paperless
| subnets. Printing which had been non-essential could then
| become discretionary and the actual cost per page would
| start at zero and stay that way for the remainder of the
| toner it had plus the two new cartridges. Well actually
| only zero compared to other printers considering the cost
| of the paper is the same.
|
| I like this printer better than the equivalent HP's and
| Lexmark I have kept running in those offices still
| largely doing full paperwork output for each job.
|
| When Windows 11 was released the Brother website posted a
| message having a positive outlook for compatible drivers
| to become available for download within a few weeks.
|
| That did come true and it turned out better than
| anticipated since it was still just the same drivers that
| had been validated for Windows 10.
|
| That's the kind of engineering I like.
|
| Now they have a detailed list of all their printers
| supported for Windows 11 with a highly respectable array
| of discontinued models going back many years.
|
| With the printer connected to a regular Windows network,
| wireless or not, you can fire up a Linux workstation and
| the printer is easily detected, although you may need to
| select something like USA Letter Size paper if the
| default is European A4.
|
| Once again I don't recommend actually purchasing a
| printer when there are so many homeless needing adoption.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning this. Is there no OSS PPD?
| kalleboo wrote:
| To get a Brother laser working on FreeBSD CUPS I used a
| community PPD from openprinting.org. Black and white only
| though (which is fine for our needs)
| hestefisk wrote:
| You can just netcat a postscript file to the printer via
| TCP. No need for drivers.
| phoronixrly wrote:
| My experience with Brother printers has always included
| having to download a package containing a PPD + binary
| blob from their support site after someone blindly bought
| one because they are cheap/someone suggested them. Always
| check before buying if you stand by good OSS support.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Which companies have good oss support in terms of
| printers?
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| HP ships Open Source support for just about every printer
| they provide. (You have to bypass the pile of steps in
| the on-printer portion of setup that desperately want to
| push you into an ink subscription, though.)
| bbarnett wrote:
| _Always check before buying if you stand by good OSS
| support._
|
| I typically always do. I have a 20 year old HP colour
| laser, but it is showing its age. All the praise for
| Brother printers on HN, somehow short circuited, bypassed
| my check-it filter.
|
| Thanks for kicking it back in gear.
| xioxox wrote:
| I would check the model. An MFC-L2750DW printed for me
| from Ubuntu without installing anything.
| alanfranz wrote:
| Please, try being a bit more accurate when answering on HN.
|
| Your Brother printer just happens to be a laser printer, most
| manufacturers offer them, you can buy Canon laser printers as
| well.
|
| They're usually placed in an higher price bracket, though, so
| the economics are different (printer price is likely not
| subsidized).
|
| The brand has nothing to do with the tech, though. And AFAIK
| it's possible to add chips to toners, just the same way as you
| can have chipless inkjets.
| enonevets wrote:
| I was sharing what printer I got and that I was happy with
| it. Nothing more. Yes, it's a laser printer. No, it wasn't
| meant to be a comparison to Canon, ink printers, or any other
| printers. I'm not sure why you felt like I was trying to
| compare them.
| credittw2021 wrote:
| Historically, Brother has done a better job of getting
| affordable lasers or laser like printers out to consumers.
| Canon rested on their laurels and played catch up afterwards
| (much like they did in the mirrorless camera space)
| alanfranz wrote:
| That's totally possible, but laser tech exists beyond
| Brother nevertheless. And Brother does sell inkjets as
| well; so there's no 1:1 match between "Brother" and
| "toner".
| Normille wrote:
| This is such a shit clickbait article [in fact hardly even an
| article. A brief paragraph attached to a Canon press release].
|
| "Canon tells customers how to bypass DRM" = "When your canon
| printer tells you the cartridge is empty, just ignore the warning
| and keep printing".
|
| Anyone who has a Canon printer knows this already. Bypassing the
| DRM would mean Canon providing you with a way to use unchipped
| cartirdges in their printers, which isn't happening, in spite of
| what the 'article' claims [or if it is happening, it's not
| covered at all].
|
| When my lottery ticket comes up, I'm going to take great pleasure
| in smashing my Canon printer into a million pieces with a sledge-
| hammer. The 'ink has run out' messages don't bother me [as said
| above, just hit 'OK' and continue printing]. But what drives me
| insane is the fact that, if a dust mote lands on one of the
| cartridges, it can move it so very slightly that the printer no
| longer recognises it [presumably the chip contacts move out of
| alignment].
|
| When I send a print job through, the printer then clanks, wheezes
| and groans for what seems like about 5 minutes, as if it's going
| to print, then makes an annoying _Beep! Beep! Beep!_ and tells me
| one of the cartridges canot be recognised.
|
| I open the top of the printer, wait another aeon for the print
| head to clank into access position, reseat the offending
| cartridge and close the lid. Then wait another ice-age for it to
| clank and groan before... _Beep! Beep! Beep!_ Now one of the
| other cartridges can 't be recognised. Sometimes I have to play
| this game of 'Cartridge Whack-a-Mole' for about half an hour,
| before the bloody thing decides it will deign to print. And, even
| then, it'll often print the first page absolutely perfeclty but
| the second will come out looking as if someone's shoved a tonne
| of quick-drying cement up the print-head nozzles. Thus leading to
| running the head cleaning procedure which, in turn is likely to
| lead to more _Beep! Beep! Beep!_ -ing, as cleaning the heads is
| almost guaranteed to either empty one of the cartridges, or knock
| it out of alignment again.
|
| So, forgive my ire about the vacuuous promises of the title of
| this submission. I dared to believe it was going to reveal an
| officially sanctioned 'hack' to allow me to lobotomise my Canon
| printer for once and for all.
|
| Incidentally, although my printer is a Canon and I loathe it with
| a passion, I don't think Canon's printers are any worse than any
| others. Printers just seem to be one area of computer technology
| that has never got any more reliable with the passing years. I
| used to work in a university Graphics department. We had some big
| A0 roll printers there which cost thousands of PSPSPSs. They were
| always going wrong too. As were the expensive colour laser
| printers and high end inkjets.
|
| Basically, printers are bastards sent to torment us.
| Johnythree wrote:
| I totally agree. I'm utterly sick of the banging, crashing and
| grinding noises whenever I try to print something, followed by
| "ink out" messages (even though I changed all the cartridges
| last week). So I recently threw out my newish Cannon printer
| and purchased an Epson. The reason being that I still have an
| Epson dot-matrix printer that I bought with my Apple II back in
| 1976. It still works fine and is still on the original ribbon
| (albeit re-inked a zillion times). But of course the new Epson
| is if anything the worst printer I have ever owned. The first
| company who brings out an affordable but reliable printer is
| going to make a fortune.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| As a contrarian to some posts here: Have been using larger HP
| business laserjets privately and am quite happy, no issues over
| 15+ years each. Never owned an inkjet, switched from an Epson 24
| LQ550 needle printer to a laserjet, never looked back.
| lithos wrote:
| I have never seen anyone have good things to say about consumer
| grade printers. Even when recommending printers, it's a matter
| of arguing why something is less worse than the others.
|
| Printer's and copiers are probably older than computers (or at
| least civilian computers), and the industry as a whole has yet
| to find even something as a reasonable/useable/ergonomic user
| interface for their product. Literally a product type that has
| been around longer than most of their customers and users, and
| the manufacturers have yet to make a useable user interface.
| Even simple things like the cancel job button are
| unreliable/laggy/obnoxious to use or even find.
| throwanem wrote:
| I have a Laserjet M203DW and it's brilliant for documents and
| book blocks.
|
| I also have an Officejet 8610 which works well enough and,
| thanks to Instant Ink's per-page pricing model that doesn't
| cost any more no matter how much ink you use, makes a nice
| little more-or-less free photo printer - you end up just
| paying for the printer (which I got used anyway), the paper,
| and $3 a month for all the ink you can eat.
|
| There, now you've seen someone have good things to say about
| consumer grade printers. :) They really don't suck any more
| like they used to 10 or 20 or 30 years ago!
| skarz wrote:
| Maybe there wouldn't be a global chip shortage if they didn't put
| them in products that don't need them.
| trollied wrote:
| The responsible thing to do is issue new software that doesn't
| complain in the first place & any needed firmware updates for the
| printers.
| throwanem wrote:
| The claim about Instant Ink DRM is narrowly accurate but
| disingenuously presented.
|
| The printer won't take Instant Ink cartridges if it's not
| enrolled in the program, that's true. But there aren't supposed
| to be Instant Ink carts floating around the aftermarket in the
| first place - when you sign up for that program, part of the deal
| is agreeing to ship the spent cartridges back to HP, in postage-
| paid packaging they provide along with each re-up.
|
| I think that's because of the print heads, which are oddly absent
| from every discussion of printer economics I've ever encountered.
|
| In my gallery-quality photo printer, the print head is a discrete
| component costing $350 to replace - 3.5x the price of a full OEM
| set of eight ink tanks. HP cartridges have integral heads, but I
| see no reason to think they cost meaningfully less per cm^2 to
| manufacture than the Canon head does.
|
| I think that's why the Instant Ink program prices purely on page
| count, and not at all by ink usage, which after all would seem to
| make more sense for an _ink_ subscription. Shipping back the
| spent cartridges means, excepting wear and damage, HP can turn
| most of them around for reuse without having to manufacture new
| carts with expensive new heads.
|
| I think that's what they care about much more than the cost of
| the ink per se, and even the cost of the printer. The pricing
| model doesn't entirely make sense otherwise - if you print photos
| on an Instant Ink-subscribed device, you'll never hit the
| 100-page threshold for a price bump before you exhaust the carts
| and get a re-up.
|
| Their BAs have to know this is the case, and they could easily
| enough address it with a surcharge for relatively frequent re-
| ups, or just by charging for ink usage past a certain threshold.
| That all could happen on their end, driven by printer-reported
| usage data, but they don't, so I can print photos to my heart's
| content for the cost of paper and $3 a month for all the ink I
| can eat. (And have! Went through 3 cart sets in a month once,
| back before I got my Pixma.)
|
| If the subscription fee really is going to pay for the actual
| ink, that's an absurd amount of money to leave on the table, so I
| have to figure HP's upside is elsewhere, and the print heads seem
| like the likeliest place given how much they seem to cost to
| make.
|
| How come nobody in the "printers suck and printer ink is a scam"
| discourse ever seems to think about this? I'm just a yahoo with a
| camera, I can't possibly be the first to have thought about it...
| TacoSteemers wrote:
| > for the models I checked all you have to do is ignore onerous
| error messages--so it seems incorrect to claim Canon blocks the
| use of third-party cartridges
|
| The ink level readout doesn't work due to a lack of chips. There
| is no DRM story here.
| ryzvonusef wrote:
| > Printer ink company Canon was forced by the silicon shortage to
| sell cartridges without the DRM chips used to dissuade customers
| from using third-party tanks. Accordingly, it is reportedly
| telling customers how to bypass its "genuine" ink bullshit.
| (translation)
| lobocinza wrote:
| > There is no negative impact on print quality when using
| consumables without electronic components...
|
| From a Canon statement quoted on the article.
| kergonath wrote:
| Hopefully this will be held against them in a class action
| lawsuit when they re-chip their cartridges.
| YPPH wrote:
| As I understand it, or at least as the narrative goes, printer
| manufacturers subsidise the cost of the printer by expecting
| people will buy genuine cartridges. It brings down the RRP of the
| printer, thereby making it look more competitive than it really
| is.
|
| It is a risk that users might not buy your cartridges. That is a
| risk these manufacturers accept when they sell their product
| below market value.
|
| Loading up your printer with DRM is having your cake and eating
| it. It is anti-competitive and ought be outlawed. Either sell the
| unit at the real price you want to get from it, or accept the
| risk that your get rich scheme might not work.
| netcan wrote:
| I agree. It's ugly, and foul play. It's also just the way a lot
| of the economy works.
|
| Banks... banks absolutely rely on consumer fear or ignorance of
| bureaucracy & financials to generate their revenue via fees,
| charges and other such trifling, consumer hostile methods.
| There is a definite "get them in, then fleece" mentality to it.
| Gyms, especially cheap ones, have a business model built on the
| assumption that many/most members will eventually stop working
| out, but continue to pay fees.
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| Auto rentals have to the absolute worst in that regard.
| Everything results in the existing contract being destroyed
| (along with any favorable rates attached to it) and needing a
| new contract created at whatever prices they want. It is a
| cash grab hoping to catch you when you are at your most
| vulnerable, there is no technical reason for it. In true
| western fashion you have to want or need the thing the
| requires the reservation to be altered, so it's your own
| fault the rate has to change.
|
| In some states you can't even use a different credit card
| without destroying the contract - if you change the number or
| it gets reissued with a new expiration date then tough
| cookies to you. I figured out this trick early on so I have a
| credit card that is only used for car rentals to minimize the
| chance I'd ever need to replace it.
|
| Luckily I'm not flying these days due to Covid and currently
| live in a state where rental car companies are required by
| law to accept cash regardless of how the registration was
| booked, so they tone down the credit card specificity because
| they prefer you use a card.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| This is an 'old man yells at cloud' bugbear of mine. I
| absolutely resent that every single interaction I have with a
| service provider now feels like a constant fight to not be
| tricked, bamboozled, or otherwise exploited. Goes hand-in-
| hand with so many services being deliberately hamstrung in
| order to shepherd customers into shitty compromises.
|
| Like... I just want to exchange some amount money for goods
| and services without having to constantly arse around trying
| to figure out how much I'm being swindled. I'd easily fork
| over more money for services from a brand that I could
| generally expect isn't trying to take me for a ride with
| every interaction.
| dfrankow wrote:
| I totally agree but .. I feel companies evolve in an
| environment they do not control. If companies could just
| offer goods and services at a fair price without arsing
| around and be successful, I feel like we'd have a ton of
| such companies. I could be overly cynical.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Couldn't many such models be murdered, by having automated
| transactions standards and apps, that kill contracts that
| return no value and reinstate them on reuse. Basically auto-
| kill the gymn contract, if i do not visit and auto-sign in on
| reentry?
|
| Basically disrupt the abuse of the un-buisness-savy, by
| providing them a with automated buisness-savyness?
| netcan wrote:
| They could be defeated in multiple ways, as can most
| business models... good and ugly. The ones that exist are
| the ones that survived.
|
| That said, they exist because it works. There's no way FB
| could make the money it makes by selling its product to
| consumers, but it can by snooping, manipulating and
| advertising. Banking goes in cycles and modes, but it's one
| ugly after another usually. Maybe they make steady, risk
| free profits while externalizing long tail risks. Maybe
| they enjoy a low competition regulated market that lets
| them fleece captive customers. Etc.
|
| The oldest law codes we have show evidence of bankers being
| bold, usury and whatnot.
|
| In a lot of the big, egregious examples (FB, Citibank,
| etc.)... killing the abuse would be turning a $1trn
| industry into a $1bn industry. It's certainly _possible_ to
| do social media or consumer banking in a much smaller
| /cheaper way.
| ekanes wrote:
| That's one reason I'm long-term hopeful about Smart
| Contracts. If they are adopted, they may force/encourage a
| re-evaluation about all kinds of things, including
| predatory aspects of banking. For example, let's reconsider
| if poor people should really be hit with extra charges when
| they hit $.0 on their bank account.
| Aloha wrote:
| Smart Contracts are not something a normal person can
| understand. You overestimate your own intelligence and
| peoples diligence and willingness to tolerate complexity.
| ekanes wrote:
| That's fair, but brand reputation can carry society past
| that.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| But smart contract, demand standardized interaction
| interfaces to work the world. Basically they depend on
| the automatability of all legal work / bureaucracy.
| shigawire wrote:
| For the gym it is people who aspire to go to the gym, not
| simply forget. Canceling the membership is admitting
| failure in this mindset
| PebblesRox wrote:
| True but even cancelling is a difficult process. My
| husband had to go in to his old gym with utility bills
| from our new house and a highlighted version of the
| paperwork he signed, showing that he could cancel because
| we had moved.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| It is interesting to see how different gym cultures
| across the world are.
|
| Here people will usually pre-pay a certain # of entries
| or a certain time period, often with cash, and no one
| asks for any details except name. Hard-to-cancel
| recurring membership isn't a thing.
|
| We do not have many gym chains, though.
| Jansen312 wrote:
| I go with Epson or Brothers these days. Canon and HP pretty
| much getting the ban whenever I have the influence or power to
| affect the procurement: personal, friends or companies. It has
| been 2 decades. If they are able to do it drm-free they would
| have done so. People keep on voting them with their wallet to
| get these kind of anti-competitive behavior. Complain won't
| work. Laws or congress is a joke for decades now, considering
| ours have been so dysfunctional. Just ban at the procurements
| via word of mouth will be way more effective.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| As far as i understand Canon is selling non genuine cartridges
| :)
| m1sta_ wrote:
| The subsidisation model is great when you only print rarely.
| This is increasingly true.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Even then, it's really not. If you only print rarely - print
| with toner on a cheap laser printer.
|
| It will never dry up, print thousands of pages, work just
| fine 10 years later, and is easy and cheap to replace.
|
| Mine is 12 years in, and still prints the 5 pages a year I
| need just fine.
| moonchrome wrote:
| Problem with laser printer is that scanner combos take up a
| huge ammount of space. Inkjet combo is usually 1/2 the size
| which is also a big deal that I'm willing to eat the
| inconvenience of having to replace ink every year or so.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Huh. I mean, do what's best for you, but I've never cared
| whether a printer is 7 inches tall or 12 inches tall, and
| the footprints are about the same in my experience.
| cute_boi wrote:
| Same with smart tv, phones etc. They all try to subsidize costs
| by using ads and only gadfly like us grouse over it. Many
| people simply accept it and moves on.
|
| Also, many people aren't complaining and the competition is
| fierce. Many user aren't technical enough to find the
| skullduggery of such companies and at the end we all have to
| pay.
|
| Regarding outlaw I don't see it happening soon tbh. Politicians
| simply doesn't care about such issue.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| > gadfly
|
| > grouse
|
| > skulduggery
|
| Can I ask where you're from? I'm not sure if your lexicon is
| different than mine, or much greater than mine.
| y4mi wrote:
| Fwiw, gadfly was the only term i hadn't come across and
| didn't know what it meant as a non native speaker that
| occasionally reads english novels.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| I just install an ad blocker. Nobody is getting paid on my
| watch.
| OmegaPG wrote:
| We are subsidizing the product is also a lie by companies.
| They just want the recurring revenue by selling
| ads/cartridges etc.
| boringg wrote:
| Not a lie - its how the work the economics out. Lower the
| upfront cost of getting you on their product. The net
| present value of all the ink payments / subscription
| services is the value of the product. They probably have
| little to no margin on the actual printer purchase.
| effingwewt wrote:
| It is very much a lie.
|
| Items drop in price as more manufacturers pop up- only
| now they lie to us and tell us the price has stayed the
| same for over 15 years now, but magically they need to
| shove ads at us to offset the price? GTFO.
|
| Most tvs are dirt cheap to make. In fact it's probably
| the OS they all design for every tv now that makes the
| price go up.
|
| Companies screw us all from every possible angle and
| people defend this shit.
|
| Companies used to care about customer satisfaction
| because they needed us, but thanks to regulatory capture
| they obviously couldn't care less about any of us, they
| just want as much money as they can squeeze out of us.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > Same with smart tv, phones etc. They all try to subsidize
| costs by [..]
|
| All? Apple?
| Larrikin wrote:
| Apple TV+ show notification ads litter my iPad ever since I
| did the free trial of the service.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Never had any of those, and preferences lets you control
| notifications.
| tyingq wrote:
| The Nvidea Shield Android TV box was an interesting case in
| this space. It is much more expensive than a Roku or FireTV
| box, but has some premium features.
|
| Originally, there weren't ads. But because Google controls
| Android TV, intrusive ads started appearing. So you paid for
| a premium product, but ended up with a shitty experience.
|
| I hadn't followed it much, so no idea if NVidea ever
| addressed it.
|
| Was a pretty hot topic ~7 months ago though.
| https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/shield-
| tv/9/4579...
| [deleted]
| katbyte wrote:
| This also affected Sony tvs, I was super annoyed by it - I
| dns blocked their ad servers with pihole and now I get ads
| for YouTube, play store, and google music. Clearly the
| baked in placeholder ones.
|
| It's not ideal but I can tolerate it more then actual ads.
| beerandt wrote:
| You can disable play services and uninstall the launcher
| updates to fix this, then running Netflix will prompt you
| to enable play services.
|
| Clicking the first "enable" prompt in Netflix will start
| play services without enabling it and bring you to the
| app settings page to enable it. Don't enable it. (The
| force stop button is selectable, which tells you it's now
| running.)
|
| Hitting back without enabling play services brings you
| back to Netflix, then you can use most drm streaming
| services, without play services updating your home screen
| with ads.
|
| Only catch is play store won't work, but you can enable
| play services occasionally to download updates or new
| apps, then just repeat these steps.
| [deleted]
| jfengel wrote:
| There is a real world advantage to having the quality product
| get out there at lower cost.
|
| In a perfect world people would know both the total cost of
| ownership and the value of quality to them, and have the means
| of financing their purchase over time. But in practice, any of
| those points can fail, leading to people making worse choices
| due to lack of information or cash on hand. In the worst case a
| better product may simply not come to market for fear of people
| buying low quality but low price.
|
| That's not to say it's what's going on here. But I wouldn't say
| it's always necessarily immoral to offer low up front costs and
| make it up on the recurring ones, at least as long as they are
| open about it.
| bfdm wrote:
| The solution here is to repeal DMCA 1201 or add a condition
| that actual infringement of copyright is necessary for it to
| apply.
|
| All these bullshit schemes depend on it and absolutely are
| anticompetitive monopoly behaviour we should not allow.
| alanfranz wrote:
| If you buy a consumer printer.
|
| Business printers exist, and for those you pay a steeper
| initial price, but then the cost per page goes dramatically
| down.
|
| My Epson workforce original cartridges seem to last forever.
| bserge wrote:
| I've got a PIXMA 925 SOHO MFP. It literally eats ink just
| cleaning printheads on power up, power down and just
| regularly if left on.
|
| I printed about 50 graphs+text pages on new cartridges, now
| one's low the rest are about half.
|
| WTF.
| wheels wrote:
| "Prosumer" laser printers (often labeled "home office" or
| "small office") are pretty great.
|
| I had an OKI black and white printer for about a decade
| before it died. I printed many, many thousands of pages on
| it. (It was in a period where I was doing a lot of research,
| and I prefer to read research papers printed out.) In those
| 10 years, I never finished the original toner cartridge. I
| paid around EUR200 for it.
|
| I'm on a Brother black and white laser printer now. I checked
| my Amazon orders, and I ordered my current toner cartridge in
| 2015. The printer was EUR98. Toner is around EUR20. It has
| network capability and is full duplex.
|
| They're black and white only, but in the rare case that I
| need something printed in color, I'd usually rather have it
| done at a copy shop for a few cents since the quality is far
| higher. (If I'm printing in color, I usually care about such
| things, but for day-to-day printing, black and white is
| sufficient.)
| hestefisk wrote:
| Same here. I use a Brother wireless B/W laser, which is
| awesome. It cost me approx USD 300 up front but run cost is
| comparably lower. And you don't have to deal with the
| dubious practices of HP.
|
| I actually bought the printer after 5 years of pain with an
| HP inkjet printer. I had ordered two new cartridges for it,
| supposedly original HP. After plugging them in, the printer
| tells me they are not "genuine". Speaking to support of the
| cartridge distributer, I'm told I need to rub the chip at
| the back with a soft cloth (!), which didn't seem to work.
| I called HP support who told me it is a firmware error and
| then I need to do a factory reset. Problem is the printer
| is now stuck in a doom loop where it will complain about
| ingenuity of the cartridges and ask me to inset a new
| cartridge before I can access the system menu, but I didn't
| have any replacements (as the empty cartridge wouldn't work
| either). I ended up throwing out the printer. For the sake
| of your own well-being and wallet, don't buy HP printers!
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| When the Brother laser printers need a drum change--sooner
| than I'd like--that plus the next toner cartridge are
| disturbingly close to the cost of a replacement printer.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| It's annoying how much drums cost here in the US. In
| China, you can buy third party drum units for $15, which
| makes sense when the actual drum cylinder costs only $3:
|
| https://m.tb.cn/h.fknJCKv?sm=88e645
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| The Amazon reviews on third-party drums don't give me
| confidence. Dig into the 2- and 1-star reviews, and you
| see a lot of quality or longevity issues.
| folmar wrote:
| I've had mixed experience with brand-name drums as well.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I've used third party drums on HP (colour) and Brother
| (black and white) printers. The only issue I had was
| printing on transparencies on the HP: the toner would
| smear instead of adhering. No issues printing on paper.
| alanfranz wrote:
| > "Prosumer" laser printers (often labeled "home office" or
| "small office") are pretty great.
|
| "Prosumer" printers are pretty good, regardless of
| technology, I think.
|
| I own an Epson Workforce Pro WF-5620, it's an inkjet MFP,
| does full duplex for both printing an scanning, wifi
| connected, scans to google drive/dropbox, etc.
|
| I shed about EUR 220 (250$) for it back in 2016, and I just
| changed the color cartridges for the first time about one
| month ago (I had changed the black one about one year ago,
| and it's 80% full). The newer, larger ones, will probably
| last forever.
|
| While it IS possible to buy compatible ink for a lower
| price tag, I think the cartridge price (around ~30 EUR for
| the XL version) is totally reasonable for the amount of
| printing it provides.
|
| I must say that the cartridge price increased a bit over
| the years, but that seems true for most (all?) models.
| ce4 wrote:
| I got a written off office HP LJ 2500 from 2008, around
| 10yrs ago for 30EUR. I added a RaspberryPi for wireless
| zeroconf/Cups printing. It hasn't required any
| refills/maintenance yet and is autodetected on
| Win/Mc/Lin/Android.
|
| Super happy with it, I print a lot of postage labels and
| other stuff with it.
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| My 4050 with duplexer must be 15 or more years old. I
| once had to re-solder the JetDirect network card in the
| stove. Hooray for the Internet and the kind person who
| posted that. Apart from that it just works. Can't beat it
| for correspondence and everything that can be printed b/w
| or gray.
| nunez wrote:
| 100%. Bought our Brother HL-2340DW, a $97 black and white
| wireless laser printer, and it is still going strong.
| Original toner too.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Business printers exist, and for those you pay a steeper
| initial price, but then the cost per page goes dramatically
| down.
|
| Here's a secret of printer procurement, at least for laser
| printers: Usually, the more expensive the business printer
| is, the less it costs to print per page (including toner).
| With even a moderate amount of use, you save money by
| purchasing a better printer up front. That is, you can spend
| your money on a better printer, or spend even more money on
| toner. It's that obvious a choice.
|
| Just do the math: Estimate pages per month (your old printer
| may have a log). For various printes, look up the price of a
| toner cartridge and the number of pages of print it supplies.
| With a spreadsheet you can calculate the lowest lifetime
| cost, and I bet it's for a better printer than you expected.
| wdr1 wrote:
| > Loading up your printer with DRM is having your cake and
| eating it. It is anti-competitive and ought be outlawed.
|
| Why? Just don't buy the damn printer.
| loceng wrote:
| "Either sell the unit at the real price you want to get from
| it, or accept the risk that your get rich scheme might not
| work."
|
| This is something I've starter to wonder about governments
| developing new or improved road systems: is the cost being
| recouped via taxes specifically from developments along those
| roads, or is some of the cost externalized, so then land owners
| and developers are making additional profit when selling that
| they otherwise wouldn't if real costs of their
| accessibility/roads was accurately applied? E.g. are some
| development costs in specific regions offloaded as a burden for
| the rest of society, so cost and gains or value created is
| distributed unevenly?
| anshumankmr wrote:
| Exactly. I have printer from HP I bought in the early 2010s and
| I can't find the ink cartridge for it, except at a bootlegged
| version (which aren't as good). The only way I can the original
| is to get one from Singapore which will cost a small fortune.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| What if the commonly understood story - ink subsidises printers
| - wasn't true? What if printers are actually built and sold at
| a sustainable price today before considering ink?
|
| If you pulled that off in any other context - hey the only
| reason we can produce a $6 sandwich toaster on the shelf in any
| big store is by committing customers to use our premium
| toasting bread - you'd be a genius of marketing.
|
| I guess I'm just struggling with the idea that large (and
| therefore historically quite risk averse) companies would
| choose to enter such competition with peers (sell printers at
| less than cost) given the very obvious risk that someone else
| will make premium toaster bread / ink. It's a hell of a gamble
| in an established firm.
| shigawire wrote:
| The average person can barely setup a printer let alone
| worrying about pirating cartridges or doing some other
| workaround.
| YPPH wrote:
| That's why I qualified it with at least as the narrative
| goes. It's an assumption in favour of the manufacturer.
|
| It's _even worse_ if it 's not true.
|
| If it's not true, they are selling their DRM-protected
| product at cost price + margin _and_ double dipping by
| selling exorbitantly priced cartridges.
| iqanq wrote:
| Which is great for us who only buy pirate cartridges. I don't
| want it outlawed, because that would mean printers would get
| more expensive.
| speed_spread wrote:
| In the long term, if all printers get more expensive, it
| might also mean they get of better quality because people
| would expect more from their investment rather than seeing
| them as throwaway devices. Printing technology being mature,
| I suspect the price difference would not be _that_ much
| anyway - I'd have no problem paying 250$ for a printer that
| sells today for 100$ if it meant I no longer had to chase
| down pirate cartridges and knew I could still get parts for
| the machine in ten years time.
| k_sze wrote:
| I'd rather this DRM bullshit just stops. It's a complete,
| utter waste of silicon.
| freemint wrote:
| It doesn't have to be, there could be a deposit on
| cartridges and they just get refilled by Canon.
| dv_dt wrote:
| It also aligns with a perverse incentive to make the printers
| cheaper and more disposable, creating more waste.
| dark-star wrote:
| Why is this making the news? It's just a "click on OK if you
| really want to use this cartridge"
|
| Not really "bypassing" any "DRM" here, are we?
| mbarbar wrote:
| Yeah the title is a bit unfortunate, but I think this is
| interesting news. As an aisde, it seems really wasteful to
| attach a semiconductor to a disposable/consumable item in the
| first place...
| bbarnett wrote:
| It's OK. The cartridges are labeled as recyclable, which
| means (as with a lot of recyclable stuff) it just get sent to
| India or China by the boatload.
|
| Then someone digs through said random stuff, finds the
| cartridges, extracts the chips, sells them, feeds their
| family, and then after market Chinese clone makers use the
| legit chips to make knockoffs.
|
| So, outside of the cost of shipping this stuff all around the
| world, and that the recycling just ends up in the trash in
| another country, it all works out in the end.
|
| * edit.. I notice downvotes, but there have been endless news
| stories of how recycled trash is sorted, and often
| categorically sold to specialty companies to deal with. And,
| how said companies just ship that trash, by the boatload, to
| India or what not.
|
| And yes, how after usable parts are extracted, it just goes
| into a landfill.
|
| One big horror is how housing in Canada, has asbesto removed,
| which ends up going through this same process. A local
| recycling company just ships it all overseas, and youtube
| videos show people in India manually working with it, no
| masks, no protection gear.
|
| Recycling is good. Recycling without a 100% traceable path,
| is feel goodz, without follow through and is often worse than
| not even recycling.
| nicce wrote:
| Regardless of how well it is recycled, it is worse as
| putting these parts can be avoided totally. There is no
| real need for these chips. Just sell your printers in real
| price and don't monetize with inks.
| joepie91_ wrote:
| I think the comment you're replying to was meant
| sarcastically.
| [deleted]
| DarylZero wrote:
| Funny how people are adopting the word "DRM" here even though
| printer cartridges have nothing to do with "digital rights". Of
| course there's no legal right to ink supply monopoly. And the ink
| being controlled is not even solid, let alone digital. It's
| merely a computerized lock on a physical item.
|
| The usage is much more appropriate to RMS's backronym "digital
| restrictions management".
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Sure, it's not DRM classic but it's not that big a leap in
| logic -- it is still a digital system that manages your rights
| (to use any cartridge you want).
| q-big wrote:
| > Funny how people are adopting the word "DRM" here even though
| printer cartridges have nothing to do with "digital rights".
|
| Thus, it is common in hacker circles to consider DRM as an
| abbreviation for Digital Restrictions Management.
| georgyo wrote:
| That's why we should use the term CRAP instead of DRM
|
| Content Restriction Access Management would cover all content,
| including liquid ink.
|
| Though you can argue that "digital" in this case is referring
| to the chip and reader. These are infact digital components
| restricting access to liquid.
| npunt wrote:
| I think you mean Content Restriction Access Protection (or
| Permission), as CRAM just doesn't have quite the ring to it
| :)
| indymike wrote:
| I can see the CRAM/CRAP bill advance it's way to the Senate
| floor. Would love to ask my local congressperson "What's
| your stance on CRAP?" and watch him try to say "I'm all for
| CRAP it's good for business, and if CRAM/CRAP is good for
| business, it's good for the little guy." If someone can get
| this done, I'm running for office on a NO CRAP platform.
| lurn_mor wrote:
| They'll CRAM it down your throat whether you like it or
| not.
| lobocinza wrote:
| In this case it's CRAM and I don't think content covers cases
| concerning hardware like this.
|
| Maybe Consumer Restricted Access Pattern.
|
| In essence those are monopolistic and consumer hostile
| practices.
| npteljes wrote:
| I agree, and propose that an item having restrictions like
| this should be referred to as "loaded with CRAP".
| crtasm wrote:
| Digitally protects the "right" of the manufacturer to charge
| insane prices, is how I always read it.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Of course there's no legal right to ink supply monopoly.
|
| Most of what DRM does on a video isn't enforcing legal
| copyright either.
|
| > And the ink being controlled is not even solid, let alone
| digital. It's merely a computerized lock on a physical item.
|
| Does 'digital' apply to the rights or to the management?
| beeboop wrote:
| Doesn't DRM on video enforce where the digital content can be
| played? Is this not exactly what enforcing copyright is since
| copyright dictates where and how something can be consumed?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| DRM controls where you can play things. Copyright controls
| where you can play things. But 90% of the time those two
| sets of playback controls don't overlap. DRM stops you from
| using different devices you own. DRM won't let you skip
| certain segments. DRM _won 't_ stop you from publicly
| showing the video. etc.
| nybble41 wrote:
| > Is this not exactly what enforcing copyright is since
| copyright dictates where and how something can be consumed?
|
| The copyright on a (printed) book doesn't let the publisher
| dictate where and how the book can be read. As long as
| you're not making copies or derivative works or putting on
| a public performance you can consume it however you wish.
| Even on those cases there are exceptions for fair use, e.g.
| parody. The same applies to DRM-free audiovisual
| recordings. Anyone can make a player for VHS tapes or DRM-
| free DVDs without running afoul of copyright, but the same
| is not true once DRM is involved thanks to the anti-
| circumvention clauses of the DMCA, and that gives
| publishers far more power to dictate how copyrighted (or
| even _formerly_ copyrighted) works can be used than they
| would have under copyright alone.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| > HP's ink DRM is clearly more despised--they not only block non-
| DRM ink, but the ink is region locked and they expect you to pay
| for and maintain a subscription to it.
|
| I'm uninformed about this. I have an HP laser printer that's
| around 5 years old, and while I'm sure the toners have DRM chips,
| they don't require a subscription. Also, the printer has already
| been saying for a year that "supplies are very low" but so far it
| kept printing fine (I don't need to use it that often)
|
| Just to know what to expect: is a subscription for ink required
| for all new HP printers now, or only some models? Because that
| kind of bullshittery is an immediate no-go for me, but the issue
| is I do quite like HP's interface (the UI on the printer itself)
| compared to some other brands...
|
| E.g. HP supports all PDFs from a USB stick, while another brand I
| know (that is quite an ethical brand otherwise) cannot parse
| almost half of all PDFs and when it cannot will actually _print_
| a piece of paper with the text "Unsupported PDF" on paper, which
| is also quite unacceptable to me (not supporting is already a
| problem, the paper waste is the cherry on top)
| nicce wrote:
| For most new printers. Older ones have got a firmware update.
|
| https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/cv/instantink
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| AFAIK the ink subscription is just an option, not a
| requirement.
|
| Sadly, our HP OfficeJet Pro can't print PDF's, and due to some
| weird driver state after uninstalling and subsequently re-
| installing it, printing is now impossible...
| 02020202 wrote:
| i hate vendor lock-in. hence, i will never buy apple products or
| anything like this.
| mbarbar wrote:
| Is there a reason consumer printers haven't been disrupted by
| some bored billionaire? Obviously some brands are better than
| others, but none stand out as a name everyone knows as a
| disrupting force (ala Uber, OnePlus, Tesla, etc; ignoring whether
| they are or not).
| syshum wrote:
| >>Is there a reason consumer printers haven't been disrupted by
| some bored billionaire?
|
| Because it is dying technology where innovation resources are
| put into paperless conversation of things that still require
| paper today.
|
| Personally I believe we are already there, a person and
| business can be 100% paperless today if they choose to, many
| have chosen not do for some reason.
|
| However people choosing to keep their horse and buggy does not
| mean a billionaire should invest money on making a better buggy
| betterunix2 wrote:
| There will always be some demand for printing, even if it is
| reduced over time. For example I and several my teammates
| routinely print research papers so that we can take
| pens/highlighters and mark them up or put a post-it note on
| some page of interest. Sure, you can theoretically do all the
| above on a computer, but even with the highest-end tablets I
| still find it cumbersome to do something as simple as drawing
| a big circle around a paragraph of text.
|
| That said, printers are certainly a _mature_ technology at
| this point and I doubt there is much room for disruption.
| syshum wrote:
| But here you have even indicated that you have a personal
| preference for the "horse and buggy" vs the "car" in this
| analogy the Paper would be the buggy, where as the car
| would be something like a Remarkable, SuperNote, or iPAD...
|
| So the paperless technology is there, people just choose
| not to use it, so if I was a billionaire looking to invest
| in something I would choose to invest in making this
| technology better, more appealable, and more accessible to
| more people than I would in disruption of the printer
| market
| betterunix2 wrote:
| Paperless tech is not there. If it was there it would not
| be so inconvenient to do simple things like underlining
| some text or crossing out a word. I have tried all the
| above and it is still too cumbersome to really be
| comfortable. It's not just me; despite the widespread
| availability of these devices and the technology
| generally, people have not really made the switch.
|
| When cars first came out their technical advantages over
| draft animals were so obvious and undeniable that the
| world rapidly switched from animals to machines and has
| never looked back. We have had tablets with styluses and
| other paper-replacing technology for decades now, but
| thus far the advantages compared to just using paper have
| not clearly outweighed the disadvantages and the world
| has not rapidly switched. To put that in perspective, I
| have not had a desk phone for more than a decade now,
| because cell phones are clearly a better thing to give
| employees; at the same time my desk is within 100ft of a
| heavily-used printer/scanner/copier.
| syshum wrote:
| Seems like personal bias at play here
|
| I have no problems using paperless tech to mark up
| documents, I do it every day. Highlighting, scratching
| out text, making notes, etc all on Manuals, Specs sheets,
| maps, etc. I use (or have used) Android Tablets, Windows
| 2n1 systems, Remarkable, Remarkable2, and Supernote's for
| these tasks
|
| Similarly you talk about cell phones being better than
| desk phones yet thousands of desk phones are still sold
| every day and when new communications platforms come out
| targeted to business there is a clear drive to have
| "certified" desk phones in additional to mobile clients
| and other soft phones (see MS Teams Certified Deskphones)
|
| So you say the technology is not there to switch to
| paperless tech but thousands have done just that, and you
| claim the technology is there to move away from
| Deskphones yet thousands have not...
|
| So.....
| mattkrause wrote:
| I don't think that's the right analogy here.
|
| I also rely on a printed copy for making sense of dense
| research papers and it's not an affectation. Rather, it's
| just that the electronic alternatives _are not as good_ :
| the markup isn't as flexible, they're harder to share,
| they take up screen real estate I need for other things,
| etc.
| jrockway wrote:
| More interesting to me is how many people build their own 3D
| printers, but nobody ever builds their own 2D printer. (Though
| I guess pen plotters are similar mechanically to 3D printers
| and serve to produce 2D documents, and people do build those,
| so maybe that's the state of the art. Can't complain too much
| about true vector graphics!)
| xwdv wrote:
| People _do_ build their own 2D printers. Why? Because you can
| guarantee there will be no watermarking or identifying
| information printed into documents, which is very important
| if you are planning to do illegal things or some kind of
| counterfeiting. This is also why you never hear about it.
| fivea wrote:
| > More interesting to me is how many people build their own
| 3D printers, but nobody ever builds their own 2D printer.
|
| The cheapest commercial 3D printers sell for hundreds of
| dolars, while you can buy a cheap printer with wifi and
| bluetooth and a scanner and mobile phone app to boot for
| about 50 dollars brand new. Used ones can't even be given
| away for free.
|
| Furthermore, you can print whatever you want in printer
| stores for a few cents a page.
|
| Also, 3D printers are much more forgiving regarding low
| resolution output.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Actually, the cheapest consumer 3d printers are now like
| $100. They pretty crappy, but so are a lot of the low-end
| printers. (My mom actually just went through that and had
| to return a 2d printer that was hot garbage.)
|
| The cheapest business 3d printer are about $1000 pre-built
| ($750 as a kit), and I think 2d printers of the same
| quality are about half that. So things are coming down
| nicely. There's still innovation going on in the 3d printer
| industry, too, so I expect them to keep getting better and
| more reliable and cheaper.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Imagine having to level your ink ejector over a piece of
| paper, I'd rather die.
| open-source-ux wrote:
| " _Is there a reason consumer printers haven 't been
| disrupted.._"
|
| Xerox used to sell colour ink printers using solid ink blocks
| (not ink cartridges). The printer heats the solid ink blocks
| turning them into a viscous liquid. In case it's not obvious,
| the solid ink blocks don't require any cartridge encasing. They
| are simply slotted into ink compartments inside the printer.
| Here is a short video demo: https://youtu.be/cnd37wYLo-Q?t=104
|
| The cost of the printers were high but the ink blocks worked
| out to be cheaper (cost-per-page) than traditional ink
| cartridges. The printers were aimed at business users and are
| no longer sold by Xerox. The reviews for these types of printer
| were mixed.
|
| Do solid-ink blocks count as "disruption" to colour ink
| printers? Not sure, but it's the only example I know where a
| company attempted try something different to the colour ink
| cartridge model. There is simply no incentive for inkjet
| printer manufacturers to think afresh about cartridges, cost-
| per-page, refills etc.
| rswail wrote:
| Epson sells ecotank printers that have refillable tanks that
| don't require you to buy cartridges.
| abraxas wrote:
| I have one. Unfortunately mine dries out like crazy. I had
| it for a year and already had a major nozzle issue. And
| that despite being judicious about printing at least a
| couple of full color pages every week.
| throwanem wrote:
| My own review is mixed. Those wax-block printers (Xerox
| Phaser) gave good color rendering and resolution even 20
| years ago, but at the cost of waxy-feeling pages and poor
| thermal stability - leave a stack of printed sheets in a hot
| car for an hour and you'd come back to find them stuck
| together, and peeling them apart would leave half a given
| sheet's impression stuck to the back of the one on top of it.
| Too bad if you find this out after the client visit right
| before the pitch meeting where you need to hand those
| printouts around, and without enough time to run back to the
| office and make more.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Interesting, they didn't have a way to "rasterize" the ink
| to the page completely.
|
| You could take that in a different direction... find a
| paper that allows you to wash the ink off it, to make
| reusable paper...
| danachow wrote:
| They are not new. Xerox bought that technology from Tektronix
| when they bought their printer division. They date back to
| the 80s and predate widespread adoption of inkjets by a few
| years.
| mbarbar wrote:
| This looks pretty cool, never heard of this.
|
| >but it's the only example I know where a company attempted
| try something different to the colour ink cartridge model.
|
| Epson does sell printers without cartridges (I guess the
| cartridge is "built-in"), and you just buy bottles and pour
| them into the machine. That's not innovative though, just
| what any sane printer manufacturer should have been doing and
| third parties have been doing. Kind of like selling food from
| a bulk bin vs. prepackaging tiny quantities in plastic.
|
| With respect to disruption, I was using the term disruption
| wrong. Moreso I was thinking as to why does no one come in
| with something normal and consumer friendly and shake things
| up, force the others to play nice.
| csydas wrote:
| I'm just being cynical here but there is probably some element
| of truth that there's just nothing to disrupt -- printer
| manufacturers had the billionaire disruption playbook mastered
| before billionaire disruption was really a thing.
|
| I'll acknowledge that disruption can sometimes bring consumer
| benefits, but inevitably it's short lived benefits or benefits
| that are just to hook you and then gouge you later. Printers
| have been good for decades, and only the limitations built in
| by manufacturers make them bad+. I think even well into 2010 a
| friend of mine was using an old Apple laser printer and it was
| pretty darn reliable for getting text out fast.
|
| Think about all the ways manufacturers have tried/still are
| monetizing printers:
|
| - DRM on cartridges - Forcing all cartridges to have ink even
| to print in black and white - Per-page subscription models that
| deliver ink and cap monthly prints
|
| I'm sure I've missed some of the other really sick ways, but
| I'm not really sure there are that many ways that could've been
| missed.
|
| Combine that with the fact that increasingly there are more
| online forms and digital signing has some traction, it's not
| really that lucrative I think to get into. I don't know the
| full situation in the US, but when I was last there, the common
| copy shops were either Kinkos or (sometimes) USPS/UPS/FedEx
| stores that offered printing services. Outside of the US,
| copy/print centers are extremely common and fairly
| cheap/convenient; checking maps, there are 5 within walking
| distance ( > 500 meters) from my apartment and they're
| convenient services (+ cheap).
|
| All in all, what is the future to disrupt with consumer
| printers? The cost of ownership exceeds the number of times _I
| as an individual_ need to print every year/the cost of just
| using a copy center. For those with above-average printing
| needs, a professional printer setup is a better investment than
| a consumer printer.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > I'm sure I've missed some of the other really sick ways,
| but I'm not really sure there are that many ways that
| could've been missed.
|
| The really sick way is (I forget which manufacturer, but
| believe HP) that refuses to let you _SCAN_ if the printer is
| out of ink.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > the common copy shops were either Kinkos or (sometimes)
| USPS/UPS/FedEx stores that offered printing services. Outside
| of the US, copy/print centers are extremely common and fairly
| cheap/convenient; checking maps, there are 5 within walking
| distance ( > 500 meters) from my apartment and they're
| convenient services (+ cheap).
|
| The problem is that copy shops are hotbeds of identity theft.
| What kind of documents do people need to print out nowadays
| that they would bother going to a copy shop for if they don't
| have a home printer? For important financial, bureaucratic,
| etc. ones. This then leaves the risk that the low-paid staff
| now has a copy of your sensitive files, and if the printer
| caches jobs, anyone else accessing it may too.
| csydas wrote:
| Mmm, I get your point but with government orgs, I see it
| two ways:
|
| 1. Form online you fill out 2. They only accept hand-filled
| (e.g., with pen) documents
|
| So I'm not really sure which forms you're thinking of; not
| doubting they exist, but there just doesn't seem to be a
| lot of crossover on forms that are required to be printed.
| The only thing I can really think of that is sensitive
| would be just identity documents, but I think a copy shop
| scanner caching the job is the _least_ of the worries (the
| offices/businesses that require such documents really do
| not have secure practices at all...)
|
| I get what you're saying I just don't think the threat
| factor is that big compared to the rest of the chain of
| custody threats with private documents, regardless of where
| it's printed.
| mbarbar wrote:
| >Printers have been good for decades, and only the
| limitations built in by manufacturers make them bad
|
| This is what I was referring to, maybe using the word disrupt
| incorrectly. I meant to ask, is there anything stopping
| someone, like a bored billionaire, from coming in with a
| consumer friendly line of consumer printers, and capturing
| the market completely? In my mind, and I could be wrong,
| printers aren't sophisticated in a way that make it near
| impossible for new players (like high end semiconductor
| manufacturing, for example -- like you say, printers have
| been good for decades) and the software doesn't seem too out
| there either.
|
| In my mind, I envision something like what Raptor Computing
| [1] is trying to do for workstations and servers, but unlike
| Raptor, 1) the problem appears to be far simpler, and 2) the
| market for printers is larger and to consumers appears more
| directly beneficial. It's far harder to sell someone on
| (expensive!) hardware freedom than that the official ink
| refill isn't a complete rort, the ink is environmentally
| friendly, no annoying DRM, etc.
|
| Of course, that market is shrinking. I think the anecdotes
| you and others point out are not uncommon, and your last
| point about a professional setup makes sense, but then...
| who's buying these things? The office supply stores near me
| still dedicate a decent chunk of space to printers and ink
| cartridges.
|
| [1] https://www.raptorcs.com/
| csydas wrote:
| Ah, that's why I led of with me being cynical because I am;
| I absolutely get what you meant and traditionally that is
| what disruption would be; a new player entering the market
| and disrupting the incumbents due to the player innovating
| where the incumbents stalled out trying to maintain their
| position.
|
| My coy interpretation/version is that frequently this ends
| up less about innovation and more about shifting consumer
| bases by simply making a flashy product with a
| superficially cheaper barrier of entry while introducing
| other means of having recurring revenue from consumers.
|
| My take is just that with physical office stores in
| particular, printers are just the sort of thing that people
| who go to physical stores to buy electronics still want,
| but I would wager it's dwindling, and a quick search seems
| to suggest this also [0], while another [1] suggests it's a
| slow but steadily growing market (note: this report
| mentions a bit on 3D printers, but the full report is
| behind paywall so it's not clear if that factors in at all)
|
| I've never heard of Raptor Computing until you mentioned
| it, and it looks like they have a niche with Power9
| processors and that they allow you to get basically kits or
| prebuilts? I kind of feel that's the "unique" niche that
| differentiates Raptor Computing from someone who might try
| to disrupt printers, in that Power9 does have a uniqueness
| to it, where as the technology for most consumer printers
| is just the same, it's just the vendor lockdown that
| differs.
|
| You might get a dedicated following of privacy conscious
| persons who would like a completely unlocked and non-
| aggressive home printer that just prints, but I just find
| myself wondering if the cost of ownership is _really_ worth
| it for the right to own a printer. As another poster
| commented on the privacy concerns of copy shops, I'm
| starting to wonder if maybe that's the next direction that
| can be done to consolidate the options to professional
| printing units that make a proper effort to secure the
| process of printing end to end and make ubiquitous
| "utility-like" printers that can be placed anywhere to
| offer scanning/printing/signing services.
|
| But I don't think the answer for this is home-office use
| anymore, and I don't see it as a market that too many are
| interested in trying to upset, but instead just making sure
| everyone gets their cut as the market transitions.
|
| [0] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/274447/hewlett-
| packards-... (Note: I have no idea how valid this is so
| take it with that frame of reference)
|
| [1] - https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5323193/pr
| inter-g...
| lordnacho wrote:
| I'd imagine such a venture would be mostly marketing. No
| real innovation, which HN will point out, but lots of hype
| and your friend who doesn't know tech will buy one and tell
| you about the great new innovations and how they're
| disrupting the old monopoly.
| mbarbar wrote:
| Right, that's what I mean (I had understood the term
| disruption incorrectly). Is there a reason this is not a
| lucrative venture, to produce something clean and user-
| friendly that captures the goodwill of customers and
| force competitors to play nice?
|
| I'd imagine a business would be over the moon with the
| scenario you're describing.
| DarylZero wrote:
| If that were more profitable that's how the market would
| already be?
|
| I guess most people just believe the story about the
| chips being used to make sure there's enough ink. If
| they're even aware of the chips.
| joepie91_ wrote:
| I think anyone who has ever tried to get any process
| optimizations pushed through in a large company, knows
| that the idea of "the market will automatically do
| whatever is most profitable" is mostly an ideologically
| convenient pipedream.
| DarylZero wrote:
| Absolutely. But I think that in the specific case -- if
| every firm in an entire market is abusing customers -- it
| implies that the abuse is profitable, and the market
| success shows consumers are abuse-tolerant. Really it's
| showing something about the demand side of the market.
|
| To talk about ideological pipedreams the "perfect
| information" consumer is the other side of it.
| lordnacho wrote:
| My guess is mainly that it's not sexy, it's a fairly
| niche thing. VC will look at it and say "what's your
| moat" until someone bites and decides that you do have a
| moat, at which point you'll be like Transfer Wise (now
| called Wise), basically an old product pretending to be
| innovative.
|
| I bet it could be done, just needs someone to take a
| punt.
|
| One could imagine a load of such niches. Come in, act
| like you're doing something new, get investment, capture
| market.
| FabHK wrote:
| > - Forcing all cartridges to have ink even to print in black
| and white
|
| In some cases, forcing all cartridges to have ink even to
| scan documents, IIRC.
| franga2000 wrote:
| I was just recently talking to someone about this and what we
| realized was that printers are such a specific device the only
| companies making printer components are the ones making
| printers and they're probably not going to sell components to a
| startup clearly trying to compete with them (or at least not
| for a low price). And since printers and scanners use a lot of
| very specialised parts, you'd basically have to develop and
| manufacture them from scratch. High costs->low margins->low
| return->nobody wants to invest. Plus you'd get destroyed by the
| incumbents immediately because they'd just lower the prices for
| a year until you went bankrupt and then raise them again.
| tobyhinloopen wrote:
| Because nobody needs to. There's plenty of non-shitty printers
| without the shitty cartridges.
|
| Epson Ecotank just accepts ink. Like, you pour ink into a
| reservoir, and it uses that to print. The ink is really cheap,
| even cheaper than toner for laser printer, and printed photos
| on photo paper look like any other decent inkjet printing
| photos
| wccrawford wrote:
| There's nothing to disrupt. Anyone who wants to pay more
| initially and get cheaper ink/toner can do so. Most home users
| just go look for a super-cheap printer with a good name and buy
| it. They don't even do proper review checking.
|
| And if you hate the price of ink cartridges, but still don't
| want toner, there are multiple printers from at least 2
| manufacturers on the market that have ink bottles that you
| refill reservoirs instead of having cartridges. Canon and Epson
| both make them, and there are probably others that I didn't
| find. I think "megatank" was the search I ended up with to find
| some.
|
| Sure, a few years back maybe someone could have disrupted the
| market... But it's already been done by the incumbents.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > There's nothing to disrupt.
|
| Can nobody do anything about the crunchy mechanics of
| printers? My printer goes through the most incredible warmup
| routine, running the motors seemingly at random or about a
| minute and then twists the paper through a maze of rollers.
| Can we not make these things more 'solid state'?
| tadfisher wrote:
| Photolithography could work. The trick is to avoid waste
| and keep speed up, which are both really, really good
| properties of the drum/roller setup of a normal LED
| printer. So you'd probably have to use photosensitive paper
| rolling over a dense row of LEDs (kind of a reverse
| scanner). Which is basically what an LED printer is, except
| the paper is electrostatically charged and runs through a
| fuser to adhere the attracted toner.
| hellotomyrars wrote:
| Kodak tried once. They sold pigment based printers which had a
| very good quality and were way cheaper than regular ink to
| refill. Then they killed it after they filed for bankruptcy in
| 2013.
|
| The printer I owned saw a lot of use printing in a business
| setting and it had some build quality issues requiring a
| replacement every 9 months or so but they always replaced it
| under warranty with no major hassle.
|
| That kind of sucks but I'd still take that over any regular
| inkjet now.
| Narkov wrote:
| I would have thought it is a dying market. Sample size of one
| but I probably print 10 pages a year now.
| moffkalast wrote:
| There is certainly a market for cartridges that don't dry out
| it seems hah.
| usrusr wrote:
| Toner cartridges don't dry out.
|
| Back in the twentieth century, laser printing used to be
| the exclusive realm of high volume shared printers in
| offices, but that price cliff quickly disappeared in the
| twentyfirst. But somehow, the printing cartridge industry
| managed to keep the illusion of "I don't print enough to
| warrant a printing method that isn't plagued by drying it
| when not in use" alive even while offering laser printers
| for tens of dollars right next to them. Apparently the lure
| of pretty colors is that strong. I suspect that even people
| too young to be born when it was still true regularly fall
| for "I don't print enough to warrant a printing method that
| isn't plagued by drying it when not in use"
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well most of the time I print something myself it's some
| graphics thing that needs colours. Though yeah some
| people just print black and white text, even though that
| hardly makes sense anymore. If you need to get text
| somewhere just send a PDF. Maybe for signing contracts or
| something, but for that there's adobe acrobat reader.
|
| Colour lasers remain quite expensive and usually don't
| include the extra scanner which is handy to have at
| times. Though lasers do have the benefit of being able to
| print onto clear transparent sheets which inkjets
| straight up can't unless you get those special roughened
| ones.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Colour lasers remain quite expensive and usually don't
| include the extra scanner which is handy to have at
| times.
|
| Looking around it seems like most brands have variants of
| the cheaper models that also have scanners. The last time
| I bought a laser printer, both color and black and white,
| it was a simple choice to have a scanner or not. And $330
| at office depot is only 50% more than an inkjet.
| moffkalast wrote:
| I mean, looking at what my local stores have on offer you
| can get a multifunctional inkjet for $90, cheapest colour
| laser for $340. But realistically are you going to buy
| the cheapest possible one? You can probably get a very
| decent inkjet for $150 but for a decent laser you'll
| probably need to go into the $500 range. It's a roughly
| 3X price difference.
|
| Still this does surprise me, last I checked they were all
| over $600 at the very least, so the prices have come down
| in recent years I guess.
| nybble41 wrote:
| Given that a full set of replacement ink cartridges can
| cost $70 or more, it doesn't take very many instances of
| replacing dried-out but otherwise barely used cartridges
| to make up the difference in up-front cost.
|
| If you regularly print full-color photos, by all means
| get an inkjet. (Perhaps consider one of the tank-based
| models, though.) Otherwise, a laser printer will
| generally be more economical for home printing in the
| long run, especially if you can settle for a black-and-
| white model, and you can always take the rare exceptions
| requiring full color to a print shop or photo kiosk.
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