@ifixcoinops this "innovation" is that makes me using my 20y old hp laser printer. It works. No problems ever. It has network via Ethernet. If this one ever breaks I don`t know what to buy. Probably it will be a Brother following your argumentation here.....

@ifixcoinops got two Brother printers after suffering with HP for a decade. Flawless after 3 years. Gotta credit reddit for all the love for Brother.

@ifixcoinops I own a Brother printer, and my parents both have another brand.

I agree with you. :thisisfine:

@ifixcoinops I just got my Epson L8050 and I love it. I'm mostly making stickers and photos but it's really well designed and I didn't have any issues with it other than software stuff.

I think moving components are just so hard to get right without expensive materials and assembly that it's not an innovation issue but one of cheap markets.

@ifixcoinops mmm. We had a Brother printer/scanner and ended up giving it to Goodwill we hated it so much. We mainly printed black and white, but it was constantly out of yellow ink. And we couldn't print anything if it ran out of yellow ink. It felt like they were running the same scams as HP.

@ifixcoinops This. They're mostly hassle-free, they're cheap, you can get cheap remanufactured/compatible refills, no subscription BS, no enshittification. And if not Brother, Epson with EcoTank.

I'm waiting for my HP to die to switch to one of those (and I'm even thinking of selling it, but I don't want anybody else to suffer with this printer).

@ifixcoinops still thinking about my HP Laserjet 4 I got from a school friend in 2008 and that I used for nearly 10 years. 😭

@ifixcoinops @JackEric I remember when printers were designed to print, instead of trying to break the high score for the most manipulative business practices in one product to give the least possible value for the most possible profit.

@ifixcoinops
This hurts so much, it hurts

@ifixcoinops Move slow and don't break things

@ifixcoinops
Noted. Now I need to find what is Brother printer equivalent of a TV.

@ifixcoinops And there was me thinking that the only innovation in the printer business for at least a couple of decades was in finding new ways to screw even more money out of the punters for ink.

@ifixcoinops

Can we stop using the word "innovate" to refer to "rigging digital systems to either squeeze the consumer or kill competition"

?

@ifixcoinops So what you're saying is, I should get a Brother? (just kidding) I'm seriously considering it when my current one, which only a few years old and has been such a disappointment, dies.

@ifixcoinops I will attest to that being why I love Brother, and until recently loved Lexmark.

@ifixcoinops "I have an idea! What about we make a product that just does what it is made for?" xD

@ifixcoinops It's because all those "innovations" from the other brands asked not, "what can we do for our customers", and instead asked, "how can we make sure our customers buy ink and toner from us?"

In 2020 I installed an HP. Two days later I got a call because it had stopped printing. To get it to print again I had to connect it to an HP account, and then I had to agree to only buy "HP Genuine" ink. I turned to the user and said, "well I guess we won't be buying HP printers any more."

@ifixcoinops

Sounds like #enshittification .

@ifixcoinops how is the state of linux support/drivers? IIRC that's why Brother didnt make it last time for me

@ifixcoinops Epson with the tanks. No more cartridges!

@ifixcoinops Brother doesn’t really even need to innovate at this point...

@ifixcoinops
Brother management: DO NOTHING is Option 1. Why make changes when customers are not complaining?

@ifixcoinops I have an old laserjet and when it stops finally working I'll just die or something I guess :D

@ifixcoinops if it wasn't the Brother, I'd be recommending any HP4 from the 90s, if you find one on ebay

@ifixcoinops But what’s with that “Refresh” ink subscription that comes with new Brothers? It sounds like the HP nightmare I recently escaped?

@ifixcoinops KISS Principle

https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine

@ifixcoinops
my old brother that i pulled from a trashpile during student move-out 5 years just got taken out by a power surge.

I am despondent
@idefix

@ifixcoinops @Gargron I have to add to the chorus of Brother printer fans. Everything else is insane garbage, and the Brother just does: (1) wait for print job, (2) print it

I also am deeply biased towards printers where you can telnet to them...

@ifixcoinops My old Brother all-in-one died and I went looking for something that was reliable, inexpensive, and compatible with Linux. That's pretty much a new Brother. Everything else had so much enshittification it was not even a consideration.

@ifixcoinops
Yeah, 100%. Is my brother laser easy to operate or has it the best App? God now. But it prints when I want something printed, is cheap to operate and happily takes 3rd party toner. All I want from this machine, sometimes good enough is just enough.

@ifixcoinops FWIW, Lexmark are also fine.

@ifixcoinops
More than by not innovating Brother got customers - including myself, a few years back - because they don't try to screw you at every step, out of pure greed.

@ifixcoinops According to the table linked below, there are also other reasons for preferring a Brother printer.

https://thegoodshoppingguide.com/subject/ethical-printers-scanners-and-all-in-ones/

@ifixcoinops they are fine.
And they do their job nice and smooth.
I wake up mine two or three times a year and they're happy to print whatever I give them to eat.
Not like my numerous previous hp for the last two decades.
Bro, get a brother, they are fine.

@ifixcoinops
P1: which (network) printer to I use?

P2: just select <name>

P1: OK, and where is that?

#OBrotherWhereArtThou

@ifixcoinops I've owned 3 brother printers in my life time; and my larger family too - several; and both at work and home they have lasted well over 10 years... my current one was purchased 13 yrs ago...

@ifixcoinops That's the same thing I was hearing 13 years ago when I bought my Brother.

And it was great! Lasted 10 years. I finally bought a new one a few years back with a scanner that I use now.

Brother is like the Kitchenaid of printers. My Kitchenaid is 40 years old, and still works great.

@ifixcoinops there is a lesson here, it seems…

@ifixcoinops The only printers that are better than modern day Brother printers are the dot matrix printers Airlines use at departure gates for 40+ years now!

@ifixcoinops if someone from brother gets wind of this, they might start an innovation initiative, and then it's all over

@ifixcoinops

I do recommend Brother.

I've owned Brother printers for a long time. Brother *has* innovated, but it did not go down the rabbit hole of trying to add features no matter what the cost to its customers.

@ifixcoinops Putting my hand up as the owner of a 10-year-old Brother laser printer that's still going strong.

I rarely print these days, and I suspect the current toner cartridge will outlive me. I may ask for it to be sent with me into the afterlife.

@ifixcoinops Yup.

@ifixcoinops also by not making their ink/toner cartridges absurdly expensive. Brother figured out people just want to print, cheaply and easily.

@ifixcoinops Absolutely.

@ifixcoinops Can you imagine what it's like working there? Tedium beyond despair; everyone hiding in their cubicles and the bathroom all day; scurrying away at a Gollum-crouch to avoid meetings. (Not that another printer company would be a "good job".)

@ifixcoinops It's all about the money. Once you're OK to pay at least $400 RRP for a printer/multi, across brands, they suddenly CAN stop being shitty.

@ifixcoinops
I recently needed an art-quality A3 colour printer. Canon.

@ifixcoinops @maloki in the original request thread I remarked that I have a Brother but didn't recommend it because I don't know their multifunction line very well. But yes. I had to replace a Pixma and I definitely chose Brother because it was the least shitty and matched my needs the best.

@ifixcoinops except... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131

@ifixcoinops *cries in Hewlett Crappard, boosts*

@ifixcoinops brother laser printers are worth their weight in HP inkjet ink

@ifixcoinops Look at the rest of the Brother catalog. They have added almost no new features to their label makers for 20 years and they rightfully own that market too.

@ifixcoinops

Over the last 25yrs or so... I've tried just about every single printer manufacturer there is... except Brother.

They've all been garbage for that entire time.

The practice is, make the cheapest POS they can and charge more for ink than the most expensive champagne is, or 10x as much as a oil.

Then the innovations they employ are things such as rendering machines bricks if you dare to use 3rd party ink. Or cancel an ink subscription.. Both of which have happened to me.

@ifixcoinops The main thing I wanted in a printer was 75 percent confidence that it would print when I ask it to print. I picked up a Canon inkjet and it hasn't jacked me around, maybe because we both know I've got the Brother ace up my sleeve.

@ifixcoinops got an HL-2130, works on mint no problem, idk where to find the cups drivers for nixos though

@ifixcoinops yeah, no chips in the printer cartridges

@ifixcoinops
I settled on HP laser printers in the late 90s. Now I'm on my 3rd printer in 25ish years. I seriously don't want to think about printers anymore.

@ifixcoinops It's a bit like when I wanted to buy a pair of high quality headphones about 3 years ago, so I look at brands that used to be renowned, like Bose, and all the models they were selling had “augmented reality” features, and other “smart” things.

@ifixcoinops Interesting. When does a product meet its max potential? The point where it's like, just don't mess with it, it works. I think MS Windows, as an example, got to that place somewhere around Windows 7.

@ifixcoinops @randomgeek Followed the consensus recommendation and can confirm that Fine I Guess extends to the color laser printers

@ifixcoinops they actually print as compared to other brands which just, don't.

@ifixcoinops Kyocera printers are also excellent.

@ifixcoinops it's the printer equivalent of https://www.craigslist.org/about/best/hou/6565526716.html

see also https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine

@ifixcoinops This kills us especially cause brother printers are ass for things like linux support. The lat time we tried to get the drivers they were so outdated that we couldn't install it because the dependencies were all dropped.

@ifixcoinops my most recent printer purchase (an Epson) made me download and talk to a fucking ai chatbot to do the setup.

Fuck the future

@ifixcoinops Brother laser printers are reliable and work with Ubuntu well. Brother label printers, though...

@ifixcoinops@retro.social I have a brother lazer printer and it's probably the least problematic printer I've ever owned. it has a web interface not tied to an account, and mopria just works.
IT JUST FUCKEN WORKS. and for a printer that's all I could ask for.
I say in the same token, I bought a canon printer, it required a custom printer driver that only came on a DVD and nowhere else on the internet, and literally a day after I got it, it managed to brick itself. fuck canon.

@ifixcoinops Yup.

@ifixcoinops sounds like they are ripe for acquisition.😉

@ifixcoinops to be honest, I’m not sure what additional innovations I would need from a printer. My Brother printer does its one task really well: it prints. It is recognized by all my devices (smartphones, tablets and computers) and set up was simple.

Bonus: The toner lasted almost 10 years before I had to replace it.

@ifixcoinops #enshittification

@ifixcoinops sometimes the best action is inaction

@ifixcoinops I totally concur!

@ifixcoinops @hex The most valued person in any office is the one who can fix the printer.

@ifixcoinops
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and "If you want a radio alarm clock, get a clock and get a radio" are valid "innovations".

If everyone is making wild decisions/changes merely for change's sake, choosing to stay the course because it remains the best course is a choice, and arguably a good one.

@ifixcoinops I think it's always worth considering if you can avoid having a printer and just print at a place near you when you absolutely need something printed, like an authorization form.

I can't recommend not having a printer enough.

@ifixcoinops I think there’s more here and this take doesn’t give them enough credit? It’s not like they were a static company. But if you leave the base experience the same you can find bugs, and fix bugs, and every random operating system that interacts with them doesn’t have to follow the bouncy moving target.

Like, I imagine there are folks at Brother who actually get sprints to work on bugs, because they’re not constantly pushing new shitty features!

@ifixcoinops I used to tell everyone "Just get HP, they're fine". Then my latest HP printer requires an app to use (there's a USB port to connect to a computer but it does nothing, why did they spen the $0.05 to add it), and the app keeps asking me to subscribe for more ink. Oh, and if my kid wants to scan their homework they have to come get my phone.

Where's the open source laser printer/scanner movement to help me out, here?

@ifixcoinops Drivers. They Just Work™, even with Linux (often ignored by other brands), via USB or network.

@ifixcoinops Tech folks don’t recommend printers

@ifixcoinops Meanwhile my brother worked great for a year and then suddenly stopped seeing my wifi and it doesn't have a cat5 port so it is impossible to print over my home network.

l.o.l

@ifixcoinops Had a perfectly fine Home/Office Brother Printer. Up-dated my IOS and found that particular model will not work with my latest IOS. Checked with Brother. Rather than do a fix they offer to sell me a new Printer.

@ifixcoinops

🙋🏼‍♂️I bought a Brother for home with 2 ink luggables. I still have yet to get through the first one as I use it casually.

@ifixcoinops Just replaced my 20 year old Brother with a new Brother with WiFi. It never has failed me!!

@ifixcoinops Please, I don't want to talk about printers, lol.

@ifixcoinops
It’s kinda like TV’s. Just sell a dumb one and stop invading my privacy.

@ifixcoinops @JenWojcik 💯💯💯

@ifixcoinops I've bought a used! Brother laser printer years ago. Been told, I'll probably soon need new toner though. A few years later I bought some just to be safe so I'd not have issues at the wrong moment. Guess what... And yes I'm actually using it, but still...

So I agree with you.

@ifixcoinops So they just jumped off the enshittification wagon?

@ifixcoinops I agree. Unfortunately, enterprise sentiments seem to move so slowly. I see Brother judges based on experiences with products and support from 10 years ago and HP still widely praised even though Brother seems to have gotten consistently better and HP consistently stagnant or worse in that time.

@ifixcoinops
Yes.
Got a brother-printer-scanner a long time ago (maybe 15 years?) and still happy with it. Would be even happier if I could get a win 11 printer driver for it. I got a solution for the scanner (VueScan) and that works a treat.

@ifixcoinops As a wise man once put it: don't fix what ain't broke.

@ifixcoinops chiming in: this is also my experience. bought a wireless brother laser printer, and i haven't thought about it once since i bought it. it prints, and never creates a problem.

@ifixcoinops I recommend older Canon Pixmas for similar reasons for folks getting them for primarily everyday art printing. Not a new one. Never an all the bells and whistles model.