I hate that everything now is a subscription service instead of buying it and do whatever you want.
Shit that should be fucking illegal, this.
Submitted 1 year ago by Crispy_Mate@lemmy.world to [deleted]
I hate that everything now is a subscription service instead of buying it and do whatever you want.
Shit that should be fucking illegal, this.
It should be. But you agreed to it. Gotta print out that child support declaration in 20 minutes before your lawyer has to go to court? Hey fuck you consumer. Have a medical emergency and need to print something to save a patient? Fuck you consumer.
Someone should sue them for everything they are. Because they are thieves of the highest order.
But you agreed to it.
When does an agreement become null and void when the knowledge and time needed to understand the terms, and especially whether they even stand in the various jurisdictions, is simply unfeasible for a layperson to be expected to possess?
In a similar vein, if an agreement requires a lawyer on call/retainer to interpret, what court besides a bought court would possibly uphold such a standard?
Fwiw I’m not asking this with the expectation of you personally having the answers, but to further highlight the absurdity of many of these so-called agreements.
Third voice for a Brother. I used to work an office supply store and they were by far the most reliable printers we sold.
I’ve had my Brother printer for several years and never had an issue. I don’t have the color one, just black and white. Would buy again.
I treat my Brother laser like a rented uhaul truck and it just keeps going.
I have one of the complicated brother ones that scans and prints, including double sides, in colour, and it’s a tank. Works fine in Linux too.
It even does fax, which someone, somewhere probably finds useful.
That was because of a misunderstanding. Brother started a subscription service and people assumed that meant you had to pay a monthly fee to use the printers like with HP. Instead, it’s a toner subscription like Dollar Shave Club or Amazon’s Subscribe and Save where they auto-send a new toner at your requested interval.
I use cheap Chinese knockoff toner in my Brother laser
Saw some people posting recently they sold out also
I also heard a rumor about something somewhere, that maybe something might have happened. But I’m not sure. /S
I’ve had the same brother inkjet printer for 14 years now, and it still works great.
I just read an article the other day that said LG is about to start charging subscription fees for washing machines 🙄
I will go old school and start washing my clothes against a rock in the river before I’ll pay a fucking subscription to use my own washing machine
That is crazy.
Like a damn laundromat. So is LG gonna supply water and power too? Wtf are the charging for? The right to buy their product? Lmao. Fuck off.
The article said the subscription was for “software updates” which really seems like something they should provide for free anyway so you’re really just paying for the privilege to use their precious machine that you already paid for lol
what is the difference between a subscription and a never ending loan
With a loan you actually receive money at the srart.
A loan usually comes with full support and warranty service for the duration of the loan. With a subscription I bet you get to pay without receiving these benefits in return.
man the world is so fucked up that I was more surprised that they weren’t already doing this
Ready boys? Say it with me, now.
BROTHER👏LASER👏PRINTER👏
I love the fact that brother basically does no marketing as far as I know. They just end up shining like a diamond because they make a generally good product and everyone else around them makes absolute trash.
I shit you not I have a brother laser printer that I don’t even know how old it is. My dad pulled out of our basement and cleaned it up and got it running so I could use it in college back in 2009. Skip ahead to 2016 and I’m using it for the table cards at our wedding. It’s 2023 and I still use it from time to time. I’ve only changed the toner once and cleaned it a handful of times, but that sums up the entirety of the maintenance while I’ve had it. I have to plug it into my computer via USB which isn’t so bad. But they don’t have a driver available for OSX anymore so it’s now a PC only printer. I’ll keep using it until it stops working or isn’t compatible with any computer anymore.
I have to plug it into my computer via USB which isn’t so bad.
Regarding the driver, I had the same problem with running my 2005 HP LaserJet 1020 on OSX, but got it running with a built-in driver for a printer in the same build group (LJ 1022, maybe?) so keep that in mind if you haven’t already tried it. I know your printer is Brother and not HP, but there may be a native Brother driver already in the OSX build you can use.
You may lose some advanced driver functionality doing this but most printing doesn’t require it anyway. If it works you’ll be able to print just fine. You can also search your model number and see what Mac printer driver hacks others have come up with, since this was not an uncommon thing with Macs back when I had to do it a few years ago.
But yeah, on the sad day my old HP LJ non-networked non-enshittified printer carks it, I’ll be getting a Brother. No way I give HP my business now.
Yep, totally. In the vile shit that printer business is, Brother seems to be the only brand to not be straight-up anti consumer. I have a Brother all-in-one machine at work, it works out of the box on all devices, scans with whatever app, doesn’t push some bullshit custom nagware every time you print and, best of all, ACCEPTS NONAME TONERS without saying a single word of complain. It doesn’t refuse to print, doesn’t even mention that you may get worse quality prints (yeah right). It just prints and we don’t have to think about it and I really appreciate it.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Brother are also going down the subscription path.
They are but the pricing is ok, £2 a month for 50 pages. The higher end pricing seems to be around 3p per page which is what they price their toners at. They even allow you to rollover a decent amount of print credit. Now, if they had these printers in shops around the country and I could use the credit for those instead of just in my own home, I think it would be a really cool service. The local corner shop charges £2 to print a single sheet of A4 and then 50p per page after that.
No joke. I had HP and I knew Brother was painfree experience and when I was buying said HP, I completely forgot about them. Few years forward my old HP avoided destruction by sheer luck and my brother’s will to try and tame it. These days I have Brother laser printer and it takes whatever you throw at it without complaints. It’s so obedient am having issues accepting such behavior.
What about Epson? Specifically I’m considering one of the ecotank ones because I need to print stuff for board games like info sheets and so on that need rich colours and designs. Might even look into A3+ printers.
Are those useful? The per-page cost looks crazy low for an inkjet.
Yes, I have a b&w brother laser/scanner than is 6 to 7 years old and it goes on without any issues (except networking BS at times, but that is likely my problem)
Got it, but which printer if I want to print photos (only a hand full every one or two months)
A printing kiosk or photo shop. They will be so much better quality. If you buy an inkjet and only use it once or twice a month the heads get clogged and you waste loads of ink cleaning it.
You can get them printed for 12 cents a photo at Walmart.
For me it’s so rare that I get them printed at the drug store.
What the other guy said. Unless you genuinely need high-quality color photos on a daily or weekly basis, you do not need an inkjet printer. Go to a print shop, get it done right and it’ll be much less headache – but the vast majority of the time I’ve needed something printed, it has been swathes of black text on white paper. And a plain B&W laser printer does that perfectly, with no bullshit. I just recommend Brother because they’re a decent company.
But never EVER buy a brother inkjet, its the same as all the other brands. You cannot insert bootleg ink anymore. My printer didnt accept any ink apart from the oem.
I’ve moved to Brother from HP. Disappointed by the support for Linux. While the driver exists, a lot of them aren’t packaged. HP does a better job at that.
But people will think something is wrong when it just works and prints for years without needing any replacements
Got one of these years ago and it’s still kickin’
I find myself being a printer snob by judging a friend of mine for buying into HPs ink subscription ecosystem.
Epson ink tank. Bought it second hand and downloaded the drivers directly from them. They always want you to buy ink, but thats expected.
Every time I think printers can’t get any worse, they get worse.
What’s next? are they going to have to scan your anus to confirm that it’s actually you printing things? I shouldn’t give them ideas.
By the way, I’m sure there’s a way to get into the firmware of the printer to disconnect it from that centralized service.
What’s next?
Printed ads.
Or get the brother printer while they’re still good.
The firmware will ask for a tip every 10 pages.
If they could get away with it, they would have made paper that only works on their printer, and it would be more expensive than normal paper but you have to use it.
Why not just not allow it to connect to any internet and use wired printing?
Best printer 2023: just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it’s fine - The Verge
(or a laser printer in general, Brother is just a Known Brand)
Subscriptions are out of fucking hand.
What the fuck is wrong with people? It’s been common knowledge that hp is trash for decades now. The whole idea of capitalism is that the bad products fail when customers go to the competitors who do a better job, but hp is not a monopoly and there are better competitors that exist, but people keep in buying HP because frankly, they are too fucking stupid. Capitalism is a lie because consumers are too stupid to pick the best products.
HP printers are now pure scamming dog shit. The HP printer division must have been taken over by criminals.
The first laser printer I worked with was a HP 4L and it was fantastic. So fantastic, that we implemented it company wide, and they were close to immortal. The last of them got killed off when we got follow-me print.
If you want a decent laser printer today, stay clear of HP and get a Brother instead.
I’ve been saying for about 15 years now – you’d have to be a masochist to buy HP printers. Why do people keep enabling these shits? You just encourage them to be even worse. Don’t stand for even a little of their bullshit and they will change or die. You make a noose for your own neck.
Printer company are one of the biggest legalized scammer we currently have. Out water and some ink they make huge amount of Profit.
They are the Definition of making Gold out of shit.
Their laptops and desktops are terribly cheap too. Just avoid HP all together is everyone’s best bet.
A shame to hear how far HP has fallen. Back in the day they had some solid, workhorse laser printers that delivered for years with no issues and pretty good toner efficiency. Based on what I’ve read here, I’m not likely to buy another.
So they have all these printers connected to their servers I guess. Nice. Not a security risk at all.
Homeowner-targeted inkjet printers are evil, especially from HP. NEVER buy one that works a subscription into the purchase. They are garbage, and can disable your cartridges if you cancel your subscription.
This is generally for a business lease contract with HP. I’ve never seen this done to a printer the person buys outright, only for contracted leased “pay-per-use” printers.
“You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy”
I guess this sentence is already became the reality in some countries if you can’t even buy a god damn printer without it locking you out.
My mom’s Amazon Halo that counts steps just shut off because they ended the service. I do not trust anything that requires live service at this point.
nobody should support companies that place restrictions on their hardware for RANSOM
I switched to one of the Epson EcoTanks after the HP Ink got super expensive (Over $150 to replace all 4 cartridges). Printer was $$$ but the ink in bottles ($15 a pop, Costco sells them all in a pack for $40) is cheap enough that for the in-frequent printing we do at home (My partner uses it more than me for making buttons and stuff)
Buy a brother printer instead. They may be a bit more expensive, but their easy mantainance and the amount of bootleg ink you can find online makes it worth the extra price.
I hate these things. I took one out to an abandoned reservoir and blew it to pieces with a .12 gauge shotgun. Very therapeutic.
At this point I’m afraid to update anything because it will turn into a debilitating subscription fee. One is whatever, but 50 of them is insane, and that’s kinda where it’s going. Monthly fee for breathing next.
I still use the same printer I got in 2004. Hp color laser jet 2600n. Highly recommend. It’s large and loud and toner is pricey. But toner is widely available, you can easily get 2,000+ pages out of a toner cart, I’ve generally found it to have native driver support in macOS and Linux at this point, it has an Ethernet jack so you can print over network, etc. the toner is also much more reasonable if you only print black and white, the $$$ is if you change all the toner carts at once.
It does have a toner tracking chip but you can override that in the firmware. they used to actually allow you to do such a thing!! It’s not even like a secret developer menu thing, it’s just an option you can pick although iirc it warns you print quality may suffer. or you can just buy blank chips for a few bucks, it’s just a little plastic tab that you break off and then you slide the old one out and the new one in. But that’s more for if you plan to refill the toner carts which I do not recommend; it’s a messy process where you have to burn/cut a hole in the cart, refill with powder, then seal it with tape. I tried it a few times and it was a huge mess and lead to leaky carts; not worth saving the $50 bucks or whatever
I’m pretty sure in like 2040 my house will be an anachronism of old tech like this. It’s already mostly there with some notable exceptions. If I have to subscribe I won’t buy it; if I buy it and find out I need to subscribe I’ll return it or sell it. I will pay month by month for items that justify a need for ongoing payment (like I pay once a year for Usenet access). But I don’t think I am in the target demo for basically any company lol
++ for brother. Still running my 2013 mfc j470 ink jet purchased in 2013. I purchased it because of their support of Linux and Android. I’ve NEVER used official ink cartridges besides what came with it. it’s printed 6900 pages
Well I guess I will keep my 13 years old laser b/w printer then. Still works like a charm. There is no dried ink, no DRM, nothing. And it just works even it has not turned on for a year.
Except for the original deskjet they had back in the early 90s, I haven’t touched HP,.on purpose anyways, since then. I hate their printers, their computers their software, nothing about their stuff works properly and has been garbage for me.
My in laws bought one of those damn HP’s. It had an issue 1 month in and required the special setup cartridges to re-run the wizard. But those had already been used up and discarded. It wouldn’t f-ing work with regular cartridges, and their subscription wouldn’t let them get more setup carts. Literal 1 month old e waste
Business class laser printers are where it’s at. I don’t get why people still buy inkjets.
knobbysideup@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Other than the recent nonsense, this is why I cancelled Netflix and went back to pirating. Content leaves unexpectedly? Not on my Nas.
ghostermonster@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Why I went to DVDs. There is libre software to rip them and depending on country it’s legal, so basically you get a DRM-free legal copy with ability to archive or lend to a friend.
bob_wiley@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ve been looking at going back to physical media as well. I’ve about had it with this nonsense.
buckykat@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
But then it’s in DVD quality. Why not just pirate a full quality version?
ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 1 year ago
What software would that happen to be, supposing it’s not MakeMKV?
oatscoop@midwest.social 1 year ago
I’ve taken to de-DRMing any e-books I bought from Amazon for that reason.
Also, the “You can only view this book on 3 devices” – yeah … fuck off.
Calibre + DeDRM plugin + KFX plugin. Perfectly legal too, as long as you aren’t distributing them.
ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Btw, did you know of Weightless Books and Smashwords?
They may not have as many ebooks as Amazon, but they do offer DRM free ebooks, and may be worth keeping in mind to check before going straight to Amazon.
ChrisMcMillan@lemm.ee 1 year ago
This is the way.
LiveLM@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
Except when I accidentally rm -rf the media folder but shhhhhhhh
SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Old school pirating or new school? Last time I remember pirates was like… Napster, Limewire, Kazaa… Then went to TPB before it got raided like 8 times… What’s the current? Is it still torrenting with proxies?
Cyyris@infosec.pub 1 year ago
I just got my automated pirating machine set up!
Here’s the wiki for the *arr apps!
Set up your profiles for Radarr/Sonarr to pick the quality of release you want (1080p, min/max file size, etc)
Feed Radarr/Sonarr your qbittorrent info, nzbget & Usenet info
They will automatically search the indexes (I use 1337x for torrents & nzbgeek for Usenet) for the files that fit your parameters, download it, and organize it.
All you have to do is point Plex at the output folders and BAM, automated pirating.
I even took it a step further and set up Doplarr - a Discord bot that handles requests. Now friends/family can ping the bot with their movie/show requests and it’ll sync up to Radarr/Sonarr and add their requests!
overzeetop@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Oh, the high seas are very, very busy these days. Still a bit difficult for the non technical user, but there is buried treasure out there.
Tavarin@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Torrents are still around, lots of sites out there for them.
You999@lemmy.world 1 year ago
New skool is to use automation tools to grab and manage your media. You can still use torrenting but IMO using usenet is more reliable and doesn’t flag your ISP. I highly recommend anyone pirating to use 'arrs wiki.servarr.com
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Word on the street is that reddit’s are slash piracy has a pretty good guide to it in their wiki, including lists of generally trustworthy torrent sources. I of course don’t torrent, because I’m terrified of legal consequences–I just browse shady but technically legal websites to stream my anime
PM_ME_YOUR_ZOD_RUNES@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I’ve been pirating since Napster and you’re right, it’s changed a lot. These days, I usually just stream from third party sites. Takes less room on your PC and is faster than downloading a torrent. Dopebox is where it’s at for most stuff. 9anime if you like anime, it’s better than the paid alternatives like Crunchy roll or Funamation.
peanut_boy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Content leaving isn’t a problem. If they give up some things they have more money to get the rights to other content, and usually by the time it leaves I’ve either watched it or don’t want to. If it’s one of the rare things I want to watch several times, I can just buy it. But cracking down on password sharing is ridiculous. They’ve been functioning fine with people sharing passwords. I bet the current pricing accounts for password sharing. But now people in college can’t be on the family netflix? Pure greed.
Snowcano@startrek.website 1 year ago
Content leaving is totally a problem. I’ve lost track of the number of times my spouse and I say, “Oh hey, what about we finally watch xyz that’s been in our queue for ages? Yeah that seems like a good one for Friday pizza night! …oh, it’s vanished from our queue, hooray.”
It’s not my full time job to keep tabs on what’s coming and going from the damn entertainment service that I hope to use in my ever dwindling reserves of free time. Especially when there’s alternative means available that are not too difficult to use.
basxto@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
This is incredibly annoying for series. Crunchyroll dropped Bleach, a series with over 350 episodes, when I was at episode ~100. A few years ago I started to manually keep track of the episodes I watched, since you lose your progress when they drop it (true for crunchyroll, prime and netflix)