Occasional printing, and supply problems

[Michael Butash]

Printers are the worst scam - printer companies just try to come up with a
new trap every year to outrace (planned) obsolescence, generally screwing
you over in some way.  Over the 20+ years of intermittently owning a
printer, when I have to print something once or twice a year, it seems the
printer dies before the 3rd print.  The ink dies, the machine dies, or
somewhere in between.  You can buy a cheap printer for 30 dollars, but
it'll cost you 60 dollars in ink, if the whole thing even lasts more than a
year or two.  You can buy a nice laser printer, but it'll generally
mechanically fail before you ever even use your toner.  It's a race to the
bottom at this point with nothing but chinese garbage being sold.

I agree with the rest - if I really need something printed, I'll go to a
print store for the once or twice a year I need to have it printed, and say
fsck printers and the garbage companies that make them.

-mb


On Sun, Feb 7, 2021 at 2:15 PM Matt Graham via PLUG-discuss <
plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:

> I occasionally need to print things.  Like "every 6 months or so".  I
> had an old Samsung CLP-315 that worked very well, but it's dead, and
> nothing I have tried (Doze10, OS X, removing and reseating all
> user-servicable parts) has been able to get it to work again.
>
> So:  What do you all do for occasional printing?  Inkjets dry up when
> not used often, so I disregarded inkjets.  I looked at B&W laser
> printers on Amazon and Tiger Direct.  The Brother HL-L2300D is listed on
> openprinting.org as "working perfectly"[0], but for the last week, it's
> been "temporarily out of stock".  Other models of Brother, Lexmark, and
> Canon printers that are listed on Amazon and Tiger Direct are A)
> "temporarily out of stock" if they are listed on openprinting.org B) not
> listed at all on openprinting.org and therefore probably paperweights.
>
> Ordinarily in this situation, I'd print the 15-20 pages I need to print
> at the office.  The office is not really an option; I have no idea when
> it'll be open again.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Howls of pain?
>
> [0] Binary-only i386 printer filter required, but this is not a huge
> problem for me.
>
> --
> Crow202 Blog: http://crow202.org/wordpress
> There is no Darkness in Eternity
> But only Light too dim for us to see.
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