@ifixcoinops I'm not sure how effective this mindset is in the Present but.... (in the past) I would go for the printer with the least obnoxious SaaS/forced obscelescense/data mining elements on it. Basically the printers that were the least " enshittified"

@ifixcoinops You're exactly right and I'm terrified of the day Brother goes to crap. Their printers do exactly what you need them to do, no more, no less.

@ifixcoinops Someday the execs there will wake up from their decades-long coma and go "MONETIZE!"

@ifixcoinops Honestly, I personally love Brother's separate the drum unit from the toner cartridge design. I get cheaper toner cartridges and in 7 years, I've only had to buy one new drum unit on a printer that did double duty as RPG player's printer and lawyer work printer.

@ifixcoinops printers are a solved problem. They don't need innovation. Maybe a little iteration, but putting in network instead of a parallel port isn't a big deal. That is the only significant difference since 1990 and today. (Even then networking was an option)

@ifixcoinops another Brother-owning techie checking in 👋😁

@ifixcoinops Either that, or a lexmark laser printer were the recommendations I got. Ended up with a B2236DW. Perfectly cromulent. B/W only though

Can take not being used for 3 months, then will spit out 100 pages of science papers for my kid.

Actually Just Works with windows, osx and linux, even the android phones, like just works, no futzing about, hit Ctrl+P, select it, hit go, dead tree appears with heiroglyphs.

A far cry from the last time I tried printing in linux with a bubblejet.

@ifixcoinops I mean, Brother printers are like a litmus test for enshittification. Compare any Brother printer manufactured over the last decade against those of their competitors, year by year. Brother printers are no worse now than they were 20 years ago while those from HP, etc. are exponentially worse in pretty much every conceivable way.

@ifixcoinops Brother was always good, always worked cross platform, and wasn't super expensive.

Lexmark was a nightmare of windows only drivers.

Canon used to be good too, but I haven't checked on them in a while.

Epson tried to be good, but failed at it.

HP just sold out their souls.

So yeah, basic cheap laser brother is my go to.

@ifixcoinops Good to know Brother is fine. My rec was always to find a slightly aged enterprise printer and go for that. I'm using an HP I salvaged from an IT job. I've had to replace the ink once in the 6 years I've had it. It got me through my master's and I printed a lot then.

@ifixcoinops
I got a Brother printer, which does what it's supposed to do.

@ifixcoinops
Smart business decision. It is a fvcking printer. I just want to make hardcopies sometimes. Put ink on the paper in the right places. It does not need to order more ink, and I sure as shit dont want it refusing to work if i buy ink at Staples in an emergency

@ifixcoinops @octothorpe in a foot race, the runner who slows down least wins. For consumers, the company that shits the bed least wins.

@ifixcoinops HP are the *worst* for that
I'm like actually angry about having one in my house

@ifixcoinops I've been pretty happy with my Lexmark SMB MFP (color laser, duplex scanner, ethernet). I can print from mobile, when at home, even. It has WiFi, but I just use an ethernet cable. CUPS generally agrees with it. 2 years in and still on the original toner cartridges.

@ifixcoinops like the sole remaining lemming that did not run off the cliff and must now rebuild lemming society (I am aware that lemmings do not actually do this :dont_at_me: )

@ifixcoinops The paper pickup on my 18 year Brother b&w laser broke and it didn’t AirPrint. A couple of months ago I bought a refurbished Brother color laser directly from Brother for about $300. Works great (as expected).
I would only recommend HP to someone I absolutely hate.

@ifixcoinops been this way for a long time, honestly.

I have had this opinion for well over 10 yrs.

It’s a printer, works fine, doesn’t make my life hell. It’s a Brother.

@ifixcoinops a solid laser printer from the 90s or very early 2000s will work well today, and for a long time if well maintained. our rough plan is to never need another one :(

@ifixcoinops I know. Due to my wife's business we go through a Brother printer every year or two. We buy multipacks of toner and keep a spare drum in stock. The Brothers could be better, try setting up a job to print 25 copies of something five pages long using a different tray for the cover sheet. Basically can't be done, but I know multitray printers were doing that in the 80s. In the 90s, had an HP that could do it (until it died). Basic work only, but so much less shit than all the others.

@ifixcoinops Good to know. I used to buy HP, because their network stack just worked, but recently they've started requiring their fucking closed-source app for "activating", otherwise it just refuses to print after an initial (totally fine) 15 pages... Will buy HP never again...

@ifixcoinops Brother makes printers not ecosystems

@ifixcoinops I’m getting so tired of buying a reasonably priced printer and getting gouged on ink because they have tied the ink in through tech-y stuff and you can only use brand name cartridges. what a racket.

@ifixcoinops Brother isn’t perfect but they’re the least bad these days. Which is sad.

Some of their models are a little difficult to get running well on macOS because they no longer officially support recent macOS versions, but the older OS drivers install just fine, and even without supported drivers they have a (very crappy) app that sorta works.

@ifixcoinops I feel this. I recently went on a rant where I helped a friend with an HP that refused to print with the ink it had because it wasn't enrolled to automatically buy more. I regret guiding her to cartridges that weren't part of this nefarious scheme when I should have thrown it in the dumpster and got a brother.

@ifixcoinops Brother is the only supported printer brand at $dayjob, because I make the rules, and I don't hate my users or want them to hate me.

@ifixcoinops Their brand identity is so good and on point

I will genuinely be very sad if Brother ever enshittifies

@ifixcoinops Laser printers were perfected by HP around late 90s. Any improvements upon that has proven to be enshittification.

@ifixcoinops fully agree (have scanner and printer from Brother) and this only makes me wonder what is the Brother of other product categories

@ifixcoinops
Come on, Brother has Color Laser printers now, and also LED printers, and support newer protocols than 20 years ago, incl. stuff for smartphones over WiFi or whatever - they have innovated, they just haven't enshittified

@ifixcoinops Not a new concept and there are so many other areas ripe for this.

@ifixcoinops
That reminds me, the last printer I had in the house from 2010-2020 (no longer have home printer) was a Brother, and it was…fine, I guess 🤷🏼‍♂️

(It was Fine I Guess on both MacBooks and PCs I used throughout this period.)

@ifixcoinops I’ve had one for about six months. Very reliable and fast. Prints on both sides of the paper.

The wifi shits the bed every other week to the point where you have to factory reset the wifi settings and set everything up from scratch, including typing the password on a two button interface. I have given up and it’s a wired printer now, I can no longer print from my phone.

I was using a 20 year old HP until then, which was reliable and slow, but it gave up the ghost

@ifixcoinops There's a certain irony in that means they missed the one nice innovation inkjets got for tasks that still necessitate them

Brother really is what I'd go for in a heartbeat if I were getting a laser though

@ifixcoinops I mean... yeah. but at least they haven't started DRM (PRM?) locking ink cartridges...

@ifixcoinops As an IT person, I wholeheartedly agree.
Sometimes "fine" and "it just works" is precisely what you need.

@ifixcoinops a printer should be like a toaster: you buy one from whoever for like $20, it just works, you don't ever have to worry about it

but instead it's some ridiculous mess of buggy proprietary software, an even buggier bluetooth mode that no one ever uses but which still manages to somehow make the printer stop working every tuesday unless it's a leap year, and DRM to lock you into using their printer cartridges full of ink that costs more per weight than literal gold
-F

@ifixcoinops they also give you enough technical documentation to write your own drivers, at least for the label printers, but that doesn’t matter to the average person

@ifixcoinops while I would realistically recommend Singer over Brother for vintage sewing machines due to my absolute love for my '70s fashion mate, the Brother machines of the same era are also lovely machines, if a bit the betamax to Singer's VHS what with certain bobbin compatibilities and table cable jack configurations. No fucking clue what either is like in 2023, the second sewing machines got 2010s Innovated was the second i peaced out. Not even the singer heavy duty.

@ifixcoinops just like tumblr vs all the other for-profit social media

@ifixcoinops the same can be said for almost all of the technology in my house. Especially in products that existed pre-2000, when everyone started stuffing web into everything with a power plug.

Find the company that are a solid product that worked, and then didn’t change it.

I’ll 100% take it.

@ifixcoinops As someone with an old Brother, yep!

@ifixcoinops I got Brother laser printer as well. It replaced Samsung one.

One thing to complain: the embedded software requires ASCII in wifi network name. Took like a minute or two to add yet-another-wifi-name on OpenWRT powered AP.

@ifixcoinops There is no such thing as a best printer manufacturer. The expression “least worse” was invented especially so it could be applied to them.

Does Brother becoming the known alternative to enshittification mean that other printer makers have to buy and ruin it?

@ifixcoinops

@ifixcoinops

Actually I own one (dcp-j5730dw), now about 6 years old. It has printed thousands of pages and scanned 10k+ pages (dual ADF), all that with less than a dozen of paper feed or other errors. Still showing no sign of letting up. Simply the best printer/scanner I've ever had.

@ifixcoinops there's a valuable lesson about stability and reliability in there. Unfortunately, big tech is pressing their ears shut and singing "la la la I can't hear you".

@ifixcoinops

Been using Brother for years across a couple different models due to their excellent cross-platform (Linux specifically) support. Never had a problem with one, really. :)

@ifixcoinops except they have now introduced their own ink subscription program, and the printers that have it don't work with their old toner carts... i fear that being the last to enshittify is different from not doing so :-(

@ifixcoinops Eventually, private equity will execute a hostile takeover of Brother precisely for the extremely lucrative enshittification potential

@ifixcoinops @engagedpractx now do 3d printing…

@ifixcoinops

Toner costs. There are plenty of HP printers around. No one wants them.

@ifixcoinops full ack

@ifixcoinops it's not just that. They are not ridiculously exploitative with ink.

@ifixcoinops
I can second this.

I bought a Brother Laserprinter and - taking into account my troublesome relationship with printers in general - I was amazed at how easy it was to install it.

It almost came down to: place it where you want it and turn it on. Amazing simplicity!

@ifixcoinops They suck the least. Still have crappy drivers that sometimes work and sometimes don't. Still have drivers that need manual patches but yet they print. Now tell me how I teach my Brother print not to print on both sides ever again unless I tell it otherwise.

@ifixcoinops I wouldn't subscribe. Isn't a working implementation of IPP Everywhere an innovation? And they have a really good app to scan and print from the smartphone. It works so good that for some time I don't even have configured the printer on my PC but sent the documents to my smartphone and printed from there.

@ifixcoinops damn

@ifixcoinops

Maybe but they always broke down quickly in my experience. My Xerox, now 8 years old is OK. Epson use irreplaceable plastic bit in the mechanism. Avoid

@ifixcoinops @990000 Hah. I never really looked at it from that angle but it sounds right. My Brother laser printer is no-nonsense and just keeps working. That’s all I want out of a printer anyway. Anything outside of that basic functionality would probably be detrimental.

@ifixcoinops their bw lasers are pretty bullet proof though

@ifixcoinops So much this. Brother printers are so boring, they're "totally fine" and do just what they need to do, mostly reliably and mostly fuss free.

They're the definition of "an okay printer" and that's all 90% of people need and want from a printer.

@ifixcoinops Yeah, I know for me, it came down to "I need to print 1,000+ pages a year in black and white and I need it to be fast and affordable."

All the other printers had very fancy features. But for the actual printing, Brother was cheapest/fastest/best? Like they doubled down on just printing well and so it wasn't even close for my needs.

(No regrets, except sometimes using cheap off-brand toner cartridges at times... I still do it, but they're inky to change out.)

@ifixcoinops
As someone who recently had to install another HP instant ink nightmare because the family INSIST on buying HP, this warms my heart. I wish they'd listen, but free tech support is free, eh.
@jbenjamint

@ifixcoinops I've been using the same B/W Brother laser jet for almost 5 years now. it's survived being stored in the back of a truck exposed to the elements for a year. It's also been complaining about low toner for 18mo+ but has still been chugging along without any noticeable quality degradation - going to squeeze every last bit of value out of this cartridge.

@ifixcoinops Brother is super middle of the road which for a printer is about all you need from it. A low maintenance printer is the ideal sort of printer so Brother's reluctance to do anything has earned them the badge of "reliably good enough". Of course now a digit of the monkey's paw has curled and we get to see what happens next but being an old-school Japanese tech firm means they're probably fairly resilient to such things.

@ifixcoinops it's a printer... What innovation is needed?

@ifixcoinops The later ones print on both sides too and the cartridges are quite large. Good quite unit. Tray at the base and no more lining up the paper.

@ifixcoinops
I'm a writer and print a lot, all b&w. ALL my writer friends told me to get a Brother. So I scraped together some of my royalties and bought a mid-range laser printer. They were right, it is a beautiful beast!
The only issue I have is, I can't seem to program it to be wireless. Have to try it again. M'eh, maybe next year ...

@ifixcoinops I've been using an Oki for the past 5-6 years - regularly 100+ copies at a time, occasionally up to 500 copies - and am impressed by it. Not least because components like drums, fuser, belt are treated as consumables and priced accordingly, unlike my previous printer (Kyocera) where it was as cheap to replace the entire printer.

@ifixcoinops i mean if it helps, though ti's super expensive, the epson ecotank printers are... just... absolutely fantastic. no bloatware bullshit, no subscription-based drm-filled ink supply bullshit, no absolutely daft software that cacks up every five minutes and refuses to believe the printer fucking exists.

I mean, it's an inkjet, but, damn is it a good one that we've got. But youch that initial outlay IS really pricy. (which is probably why the ink is super cheap)

@ifixcoinops it's incredibly sad that 3D printers are more reliable than 2D printers with no DRM or anything (people have tried 3D printer DRM and it just never worked)

@ifixcoinops I read somewhere that if people didn't expect fast printing, printers would be pretty reliable. Keeping up with user expectations keeps them at the same level of unreliability. So I read anyway. I just email documents to my local library now, and print them out there when I'm passing by. Gave up on trying to maintain a printer at home.

@ifixcoinops A cautionary tale of #enshittification. ⬆️ 🖨️ 👉 💩

@ifixcoinops At least they don't destroy your printer... https://bitsex.net/rants/2022/hp-bricked-my-printer/

@ifixcoinops

1) Build a decent enough product to not die off
2) Refuse enshittification
3) Wait a while
4) Become best available option

@ifixcoinops
I have extremely good experience with OKI. No issues, 3 years now.

@ifixcoinops Bad news ... supposedly Brother will stop selling laser printers in 2026. Not sure what I'll do ca. 2033 when my current one should probably need replacement.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/epson-is-going-to-stop-selling-laser-printers-heres-why/

Edit: Wrong article, this is about Epson.

@ifixcoinops
Brother: a fine printer, it works
HP: activate your printer online and buy our ink subscription or it will stop printing after 30 pages 🤡

@ifixcoinops My brother printer prints, copies and scans. Although I do wish it's wifi capabilities worked/weren't so hard to use. Managed to set them up and print from PC's not connected to it via cable, but that only lasted a day, afterwards it wouldn't print anymore. Reinstalling the drivers fixed it, but again, only worked for day 🤷

@ifixcoinops

For those who like to read on paper.... https://rorshok.com/ourzines/
These are functional, portable, beautiful, cool, and free.

@ifixcoinops @davoloid This is so funny - I have *just* got off the phone and then saw your toot. I was called by the online shop I’d ordered a Brother from over the w/e to suggest an alternative make was a better purchase and would I like to swap. Hard sell on it. Compelling. But in the end I had to say we’ve only ever had good experiences with Brother, not so other makes.

@ifixcoinops do you remember Aiwa? It was a secondary brand of Sony that they used for cheaper versions of their products. But they allowed the Sony brand to get cheaper, selling crap on the expensive name. Now there is no Aiwa and the Sony name is devalued.

@ifixcoinops

Brother printers turned out to be simple enough to be reliable.

I honestly regret Canon and HP. Both sucked. Their drivers sucked and all the tools around them.

Using a Canon wifi printer with Linux is as bad as it will get. In every single aspect of printing.

Brother printers just work. Brother printers are the most boring experience you will get.

At this point I have a standalone brother scanner and printer. They just do their thing.

@ifixcoinops This reminds me about the mess with Instant Pot. They had a great, pretty boring product that everyone wanted. Then venture capital bought them and tried to 'innovate' and complicate the base product. Growth above all! Poof, bankruptcy.

@ifixcoinops Yeah, this is my feeling too - they're not as good for print quality as HP, but the software is boring and tends to work, the consumables aren't insane for price, and they're not doing 'hilarious' anti-consumer things every five minutes.

They basically win by default.

@ifixcoinops

I’ve had no problems with mine. It was affordable, does what I want, and has affordable consumables for my level of use. It just works. Isn’t that what everyone wants or needs?

@ifixcoinops Brother printers legit "Just work". Only printer brand I'd recommend lol

Never had them fail on me, and if they did they failed simply due to age and wear which was more than expected.

@ifixcoinops I think you’re taking things for granted that require actual work, but don’t look exciting on a spec sheet. The thing that blew me away when I took my Brother out and plugged it in was that everything Just Worked when I plugged it into the network. That’s never happened to me before. That requires communicating with the OS vendors to make sure the drivers are always up to date and the user never needs to install anything, and it’s magical when it happens.

@ifixcoinops I have a Brother MFC-L2750DW, it is crammed full of great features. Driverless Scanning + Printing from Mac. Duplex auto feeder, with the ability to send directly to Google Drive / Dropbox as a searchable PDF. Many other useful features too. Best of all: It just works.

@ifixcoinops

Reliability and usability are virtual in a world where simple use has been held hostage by planned obsolescence.

@ifixcoinops TBF I was one of those people for years until one day when I happened to purchase a Canon and discovered that it pretty much just worked in Linux without a single shred of effort on my part, unlike my old Brother which did require some screwing around to work with Linux.

So I now recommend Canon printers.

But not before laughing at people asking for a printer recommendation. It's a damn shame I even need to have one at all.

@ifixcoinops cries in "Kyocera used to be the best ones, and guess what I bought all those years back"

@ifixcoinops

I got a lot of recommendations for Xerox. I'm pretty happy with it.

It's not crap, and worked out of the box without needing special drivers.

@ifixcoinops Exact same thing happening with TV all being "smart" now. All is see is junk features and ads degrading UX even more. I just need the dumbest 4KTV in the world