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Dear Brother Printers: Eat a [Sponsor friendly words here] (www.therecycler.com)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by infinitevalence@discuss.online to c/technology@lemmy.world

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For a while now I have been a Brother evangelist because they just worked, they did not lock you into first party only printing supplies, and they were overall a good value.

THEN: my printer firmware auto updated and suddenly my toner cartridges were no longer recognized. Its not that they ran out and I put in new ones, simply the ones that had previously worked (3rd party already) just stopped and it reported an error.

I managed to find a guide on downgrading the firmware, and now I am back up and running and auto update is turned off. I am also saving all the little chips from the Brother branded cartridges.

So Dear Brother Printers, Please choke on a bag of dicks. I spent $500ish on a laser color printer so I would not have to deal with the shitification that has happened to inkjet. Seeing hostile and profiteering consumer behavior from other printer companies you decided to copy them for short term gains.

Well I will no longer recommend your products, and I will go out of my way to fix and downgrade your older printers with the sole purposes of putting them back into use and costing you new sales.

1 down, 1 in the cue, feel free to stop being anti consumer and breaking hardware we already paid for.

URL referencing the last time I know they got caught messing with Firmwares: https://www.therecycler.com/posts/new-firmware-updates-affect-aftermarket-cartridges/

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[–] d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz 32 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

This has been happening for a few years now, yet, I don't know why people still keep recommending Brother. I guess not all models are affected by this? But it's likely only a matter of time though until they push it out to all printers.

What we really need is open hardware printers. I mean, if we can put together frikkin 3D printers on our own these days, surely putting together a regular 2D printer should be a much more easier task. Or maybe there just isn't any demand for 2D printers these days to justify such a project.

Alternatively: just use an online printing service, most of them even mail your printouts to you so you don't even need to step out of your home, and this will likely be a far cheaper option for casual users who rarely print stuff. Another option is local libraries, at least where I live, they allow you to take free printouts for upto 10 pages, and following that it's only 1c per page.

[–] infinitevalence@discuss.online 15 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Open source would be amazing!

[–] realitista@lemm.ee 17 points 2 years ago

Yeah I'd go for an open source printer in a heartbeat. I'm so tired of this nonsense.

[–] leftzero@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago

A printer being stupid (and Xerox's refusal to give him the source code so he could fix it) was precisely what led Stallman to start the open source software movement.

[–] ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think Brother is typically recommended because their laser printers aren't anti-consumer bullshit, and are generally well built and supported.

[–] d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

* weren't

At least as of three years ago, even their laser printers have started being subject to enshittification.

Eg: https://old.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mfc_firmware_update_nongenuine_toner_now/

And seems to me that this has become even worse since then. See this comment from less than a month ago:

This is a disgusting and unethical practice. I got bricked out of my mfc l3770cdw last week after unconsciously updating the new firmware bc of a data remaining in memory error that refused to clear on the screen. Not only could I not print, I also could not scan to desktop which baffles me since NO toner/ink is needed for that job! I was paying $70/3rd party toner set every 6 months and now have to pay $300+/set just to satisfy shareholder returns. This just adds to my list of why humans suck! I wouldn't mind paying more for the equipment and then having the freedom to use whichever 3rd party has the best supply price or even double for the set that 3rd parties charge. Too many companies are engaging in this practice and something drastically needs to be done about this bs!

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 1 points 2 years ago

I'd love an open source 2d printer.

I imagine the hardest part would be engineering a sheet feeder (unless you use tractor feed paper, lol)