[HN Gopher] Requiring ink to scan a document-yet another insult ...
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Requiring ink to scan a document-yet another insult from the
printer industry
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 134 points
Date : 2023-08-15 20:06 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| RecycledEle wrote:
| I could not scan on a free, used, MFP in the 1990's because it
| needed ink. Buying ink seemed dumb because the print heads were
| ruined, and they cost more than a new printer.
|
| I am glad to see this news story. It means the pendulum is
| swinging back towards stopping predatory marketing practices.
| abeppu wrote:
| Ok, maybe a dumb question -- are printers still hard to make? Is
| the IP really locked down? If I search online for printer, I
| still see almost entirely stuff from big known players (HP,
| Canon, Epson, Brother). I can buy a knock-off smart-watch with a
| heart-rate monitor and bluetooth etc, and it doesn't try to get
| me to subscribe to some paid cloud service b/c so far as I can
| tell they're happy to just sell the device. Why isn't some
| Chinese company that I never heard of selling a dumb printer
| without the authorized ink, demanded network for auto-updates
| nonsense, etc?
| lapetitejort wrote:
| I would rather make the trek to my local FedEx to do my twice-
| yearly printing and pay exorbitant prices per page than have a
| ticking time-bomb take up space in my house.
| beezlewax wrote:
| The kind of thing needs to be illegal
| jrockway wrote:
| I don't think the law would be effective. Design the printer in
| such a way that the cartridge contains the camera lens, and
| drip the ink over it as part of normal operation. Then before
| scanning, you run a cycle that wipes it with rubbing alcohol
| contained in the cartridge. No cartridge in the printer, no
| camera. And if you're out of lens cleaner, you can scan all you
| want, but it will just be black because the lens is covered in
| ink.
|
| The underlying problem here is the patent system. The Shenzhen
| Market would be glad to sell you a $3 printer/scanner that
| doesn't require proprietary cartridges, I'm sure.
| Androider wrote:
| Buy the Brother whatever-it-is [0]. You'll have no more printing
| or scanning problems and can carry on with other things.
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-
| printer-2023-brother-...
| TylerE wrote:
| They've apparently switched to the "run our good name into the
| ground for $$$$ phase".
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131
| bmitc wrote:
| That's terrible. I've had my Brother laser printer for 14
| years now, and it keeps on trucking. I have only replaced the
| toner twice and do use 3rd party toner. However, I do note
| that it says that the toner is empty well before it is
| actually empty (like months or even years if you don't print
| often).
| cubefox wrote:
| I have an old brother laser printer/ scanner. Unfortunately
| the driver doesn't work since Windows 10. It doesn't
| recognize either scanner or printer. Windows 8 was still
| fine...
| flyinghamster wrote:
| I wonder if that's the old "take the toner cartridge out
| and tilt it back in forth a few times" issue of toner
| getting unevenly distributed in the cartridge?
| bmitc wrote:
| It was certainly something I tried often. Haha.
| TylerE wrote:
| Not everything is designed to run all the way empty.
|
| Running your car at a very low fuel level is hard on the
| fuel pump - it has to work hard to slurp up what few drops
| are left - and on many newer models if you actually run it
| dry the consequences can range from having to re-prime the
| pump to the pump grenading and sending shrapnel into the
| injectors, ruining them TOO.
| plagiarist wrote:
| Yeah but the pump equivalent here is on the toner
| cartridge IIRC
| robotnikman wrote:
| Huh, thats the one I ended up grabbing on a whim for my parents
| from officemax when their old one kept giving them problems.
| They have not complained to me about it since, in comparison to
| the previous 3 printers we tried.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Brother laserprinters only here: two at my wife's SME, one here
| at our home here, one at our vacation place but... As someone
| already commented they've also started playing nasty.
|
| It's still probably going to take a few years before they reach
| HP level of suckage but apparently it's coming.
| freedomben wrote:
| When these recommendations come up on HN, It's always people
| who have had their printer for 10+ years. I always wonder if
| Brother is still the same way.
|
| I bought a recent Brother and have been pleased with it, though
| I haven't yet tried to replace toner. I'm a bit worried because
| I've heard they do some firmware tricks with non-standard
| toner. I sure hope that's not true.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I have a new brother printer (<2 years old). It _works_ just
| fine. The quality of the printer, as a device itself, I have
| no complaints about. It 's the DRM Toner bullshit that is the
| problem. Unfortunately, in the past, that kind of behavior
| has often presaged other things like degrading hardware
| quality in the future. Will Brother do the same? I have no
| idea. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of a different company
| that both supplies a quality product and also doesn't do the
| DRM bullshit. So, in my opinion, Brother is not longer better
| than other companies, but it doesn't appear to be worse
| either. Which is more an indictment of the printer industry
| than anything good about Brother.
|
| -edit- You can still (for now) get around the Toner DRM. The
| drm chip is pretty easy to remove and it just slots into a
| little spot on the toner. It's about a ~5 minute operation.
| So make sure to keep your OEM cartridge for now:
|
| https://youtu.be/NzaRVEzYuz8
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Even if it's true, Brother toner is cheaper than HP :)
|
| My 7-year-old Brother printer works well with third-party
| toner, I paid $29 for two refills and each lasts for 3 years
| or so. The printer itself was like $50 back then :) I bought
| it because it was cheaper than buying ink for my previous HP
| inkjet.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| As long as it's laser and doesn't have obnoxious features it
| should be good. Mine is 4 years old and doesn't have a
| scanner - I gotta say with mobile phone cameras and post
| processing I haven't actually needed a scanner
| jleahy wrote:
| I used to have a Brother laser but now have a Kyocera color
| laser MFP, it works beautifully so that's another good option.
|
| Also a networked printer is a lot less faff if you have a lot
| of Linux machines at home, from a drivers perspective.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| My recommendation: Buy a Brother Laser Printer and get a
| scanning app (e.g., ScannerPro or similiar) and forget about
| all your problems.
| Androider wrote:
| Little known fact, but you can scan using macOS's Preview.
| Just do File->Import from Scanner.
|
| Scans from my Brother something-or-other with no apps or
| drivers whatsoever directly to PDF, over Wi-Fi. Perfect.
| vlozko wrote:
| TIL. I've always used the included Image Capture app for
| all my scans.
| nfriedly wrote:
| MacOS also has an Image Capture app that's explicitly made
| for scanning.
|
| The only real problem I have with it is that it wants to do
| a preview scan first if you used the scanner bed last (as
| opposed to the document feeder) and it freezes it's
| interface while that's happening.
| bmitc wrote:
| I honestly hate dealing with the scanning apps. They're ok,
| but they're not cheap and require a subscription. I've been
| looking to replace them with an actual scanner.
| artificial wrote:
| Scope out Microsoft Lens (app)
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| Second that. I have an absolutely antique Brother MFC. It
| prints, scans, photocopies, and it has a $20 generic toner
| cartridge in it that gives perfectly good print quality. The
| only downside is having install a 32-bit binary driver to
| make it work in Linux, with an extra hoop to jump through -
| scanning won't work until you manually install another
| missing 32-bit dependency. But once that's done it works. For
| years. It's enough to make one not hate printing at home.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| And with gscan2pdf - not hate scanning too!
| haswell wrote:
| Yup. I've had the HL-2240 printer for at least a decade. I've
| changed the toner once during that time, and that was pretty
| recent. It's boring and reliable.
|
| I bought a stand-alone Brother feed scanner that I'm also happy
| with, but for occasional scanning, phone apps do quite well
| these days.
|
| If I want to print something in color, I'll go to a print shop.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Related from 2 days ago: "Judge denies HP's plea to throw out
| all-in-one printer lockdown lawsuit"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37113336
| drbig wrote:
| > HP Envy 6455e
|
| ...I give myself the benefit of doubt as not technically a native
| speaker... but "Envy"? Really?
|
| I still have my HP LaserJet P<numbers> I got when I was a
| student, many lives ago, and I got it to the point where the
| power button - the only button - is mostly dead. I had pondered
| "opening it up" and just running bare wires out - hacker style! -
| but... This whole consumer-printer-industry-situation is still so
| sad I'm happy I need a printer only slightly more than once a
| month.
|
| And I've seen videos of teletypes from a freaking half a century
| ago working fine today.
|
| Apologies. I have also an inkjet-scanner box from an _even
| earlier life_ that I keep around because a) it has a space to be
| in, b) it still scans (!!).
| robotnikman wrote:
| It seems like HP have been using 'Envy' as a way to denote
| their mid-high end products. Never knew they used it with
| printers though, that does seem kinda odd. Who brags about
| having a high end printer?
| inasio wrote:
| It used to be a boutique maker of gamer desktops and laptops
| that HP bought, sort of like Alienware back in the day before
| the Dell acquisition
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I give myself the benefit of doubt as not technically a
| native speaker... but "Envy"? Really?
|
| It is a very odd name. Maybe it's because people who own those
| envy people who don't.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I don't really use my Brother laser printer much anymore, but
| I'll be damned if I get rid of it. In fact, I should stock up on
| toner, since it's probably the last good printer they'll make for
| a while.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I do wonder how long HP can squeeze out this "pay gold prices for
| ink" business model. It used to be just techies sounding the
| alarm, but these days I feel like so many people have grown to
| absolutely despise inkjets, and I don't see that getting any
| better. People usually fall into one of two camps:
|
| 1. People who print frequently due to work or other business
| needs. These folks know that investing in a decent laser printer
| will pay itself off _extremely_ quickly given the obscene charges
| for ink, and lasers are much better for larger print volumes
| anyway.
|
| 2. People who only print every now and then due to some external
| need. These people may be tempted to buy an inkjet originally for
| their lower prices, but due to their infrequent use, they are
| also _much_ more likely to hit printer malfunctions due to ink
| drying up, or some other reason that inkjets seem to want to die
| if left idle for more than a month or two.
|
| Inkjet (at least the consumer version of it) is just a technology
| that deserves the "PC Load Letter" treatment from Office Space.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| I got a Xerox 3345. None of this crazy ink nonsense that HP goes
| for. Even scans doublesided.
|
| 0 - https://www.xerox.com/en-vc/office/multifunction-
| printers/wo...
| tedunangst wrote:
| > The Verge noticed that HP at least changed its language for the
| Envy 6455e's Amazon product page to say that you can "print,
| scan, and copy from your phone--from whenever, wherever" to
| "print, scan, and copy from your phone--from anywhere."
|
| Amazingly narrow update.
| starik36 wrote:
| This is why I am holding on to my HP LaserJet 1320n for dear
| life. It's been working perfectly for over a decade.
|
| I even made it wireless with a Raspberry Pi Zero.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| After headaches with various inkjets N in 1 printers I have
| bought Xerox B230 few months ago and so far no issue.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| This is only ink-jet, correct? I went with a black&white laser
| printer-scanner years ago and am still on my second, generic,
| toner cartridge. I shake it when it gets low. (Canon MF3010)
| indymike wrote:
| >This is only ink-jet, correct?
|
| This article is about an inkjet, but I've owned laser multi-
| function devices that will not print if the toner is out. The
| problem is linking the scanner working with the printer having
| filled consumables. I've also had devices where the printer
| failed, and you could not scan or fax because the printer
| failed self-testing.
|
| > still on my second, generic, toner cartridge
|
| There's a whole other can of worms around chipping cartridges
| in an effort to prevent refilling and competition. With newer
| printers, this may not be possible as cartridges "expire" often
| before the ink or toner is gone.
| nraynaud wrote:
| Doesn't one of the SV rich kids want to make the world a better
| place by building non-crappy printers? The only innovation would
| be to forbid anyone with a MBA from making any decision or
| suggestion at any level of the company. Normal basic printers,
| the tech is here, we want not even faster horses, thanks
| (actually that might be the impetus for someone to define what a
| faster horse would be).
| tlhunter wrote:
| I think the problem is that as soon as such a company accepts
| VC money they take a sort of poison pill. After that they are
| contractually obligated to wring out every dime from customers.
| Hardware startups often require a lot of starting capitol.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| What will happen is some startup will take VC funds to build
| the Juicero of printers, all the legacy competition will get
| squeezed out, and then printer cartridges for the sole
| remaining new entrant will skyrocket.
| ronsor wrote:
| Juicero completely bombed. I don't see how the competition
| will be squeezed out by anything like it.
| verall wrote:
| I think its just a pun
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I've always wondered this. How is there not even one single
| billionaire who wants to just stick it to an entire industry?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Probably because many wealthy people pride themselves in not
| printing anything themselves, so the problem stops being
| noticed
| jrockway wrote:
| It's patents, right? Anyone can build a working printer in
| their house. Selling it for money is a whole other set of
| problems.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| There were solidly working printer designs 20 years ago.
| mynameisash wrote:
| Supposedly Mark Cuban is doing this with "Mark Cuban Cost
| Plus Drug Company". Whether that's what's actually happening,
| I don't know.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It just looks like another middleman. Bringing new
| manufacturing capacity online or R&D for new medicine that
| is sold at a low price is the only thing that would help.
| gottorf wrote:
| Not every retailer that sits between the manufacturer and
| the consumer is a middleman. That is, it is literally a
| middleman, but not in the sense that it necessarily has
| to take on a rent-seeking, economically harmful role.
|
| Most manufacturers don't have the expertise in dealing
| with retail and don't care to build it up. They stick to
| what they're good at, which is manufacturing, and let the
| retailer stick to what they're good at, which is dealing
| with the whole host of other issues that arise in retail
| commerce.
|
| In a related current development, traditional automakers
| like Ford are angling to sell directly to the consumer,
| like Tesla does. People are generally on board with this
| because dealership experiences do suck often. But once
| dealers are all driven out of business, it's a good bet
| that the automaker will benefit from that surplus, not
| the consumer. It'll be interesting to see.
| [deleted]
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| SV rich kids would rather cloud-enable everything to the point
| printers are obsolete, because:
|
| - Margins for selling collected consumer data may be higher
| than than margins for ink. Ink has materials, production, and
| inventory cost that data storage does not, though this assumes
| cloud storage remains cheap.
|
| - Renting storage space for consumer documents is recurring
| revenue versus the non-recurring revenue of selling ink (HP is
| trying to get people on ink subscription plans, maybe it'll
| work).
|
| - Unique value-adds: E.g. Get people to store their personal
| documents online and they'll be sticky recurring revenue,
| because moving them is hard. Extra revenue opportunities by
| offering integration with other services for extra $$$. E.g.
| store your personal documents and use our integrated DocuSign
| like service.
|
| - Abolish paper to save the forests. Printed matter soon
| becomes a hipster fad, then disappears. Though you do have to
| keep some around for faxes, which are never going away.
| m463 wrote:
| It is hard to find people fixing race-to-the-bottom markets.
|
| I do like craigslist.org
| gottorf wrote:
| Consumers by and large won't consume such a product. There is a
| vanishingly small market for a $600 printer that doesn't suck,
| does its job, and respects your rights as a consumer and
| doesn't pull bullshit like all the other printers do, except
| that every other printer costs $150 for the same feature-set.
|
| Of course, I don't know for a fact that someone can't make a
| living making boutique printers like this. But I don't know
| that there would be an adequate return on the capital required
| for such an enterprise.
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