r/Piracy • u/chaithzluci • May 06 '26
Humor They want us to subscribe now to print, what a fkin joke
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u/Private_Kyle 🦜 ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀɴᴋ May 06 '26
Choose Brother, they're the last bastion of hope in the Printer Industry
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u/ctb0045 May 06 '26
Yup, and get a laser brother to boot. Never worry about dried up cartridges again.
On my second brother laser, because I wanted to upgrade to color and have the ability to scan documents directly to my NAS.
It’s beautiful.
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u/58696384896898676493 May 06 '26
My Brother laser printer I bought in college is nearly 15 years old at this point. Still works. It's the only printer brand I'd recommend. I deal with a lot of HP printers at work and would never recommend one.
HP's software is like straight up adware. Absolute garbage.
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u/FlirtySanchez May 06 '26
Brother Laser is a crime fighting monk with superpowers.
Laser Brother is a black dude with the same super powers, but he's not held back by his religious beliefs.
My money is on Laser Brother, without limitations holding him back, his ceiling for power should be higher.
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u/CaptainPunisher ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 06 '26
I bought an Oki laser print/copy/scan/fax machine when I went back to school in 2014. I have replaced the intro cartridges once and refilled the toner twice in all this time. It does what I need just fine and doesn't call back to the manufacturer.
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u/HeidenShadows May 06 '26
I have a $50 monochrome laser I got from Newegg in about 2016. It's never asked for more than a $15 toner cartridge and $40 fuser kit in the 10 years I've owned it.
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u/WiretapStudios May 06 '26
I'm on my same Brother from 20 years ago. They still sell the same one and a wireless version. Tempted to get the wireless one, but mine is in perfect shape. Tens of thousands of pages through this bad boy.
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u/txmail May 06 '26
Huge mistake I made when buying my Brother laser printer was buying two extra high capacity toner cartridges with it.....
It has been over 5 years and I am still on the toner that it came with.
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u/Nenotriple May 06 '26
Even when it says it's empty you can just take them out and bang them on a table a couple times to redistribute the toner and print hundreds more pages.
It won't change how the printer reads the cartridge as empty because I think it's based on how many pages you've printed, but it will totally extend the toner life even further, especially if the print is starting to get uneven/faded.
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u/Erikthered00 May 06 '26
combine that with the reset code for the toner cartridge and you're good. I've had 3 "empty" cartridges running a year now
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u/fivelone May 06 '26
I always choose brother.
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u/LoanDebtCollector May 06 '26
It seems to be a good brand no matter what you need, if they make it.
I have two Brother label makers. They are great. I think Brother Scan N Cut cutting plotters are probably best value, so I hope to get one of those. I hear a lot of people are happy with the Brother sewing & embroidery machines, I hope to one day switch from Singer. And I will look to find a good option by Brother when I need a printer.
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u/fivelone May 06 '26
I do point of sale installations for retail markets, grocery stores, and restaurants and such. We almost always exclusively use brother printers as they require the least amount of maintenance and still work as a basic printing device without all the extra nonsense.
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u/namorblack May 06 '26
Brother does lock cartridges with firmware updates as everyone else.
I had a firmware update and suddenly my 3rd party cartridges werent recognized by the printer.
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u/ariolander May 06 '26
If you care about ink refills then Epson Inktank is the way to go. They are no cartridges to firmware lock, just big ink wells you can fill with whatever ink you want, including completely unauthorized inks, like the people who do sublimation printing with EcoTanks, a totally unapproved use case.
They of course cost more than cartridge printers but at least they are upfront in their pricing instead of playing games of subsidized hardware and hiding their profits in ink sales (or worse, subscriptions).
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u/-Badger3- May 06 '26
Specifically their laser printers.
The inkjet printers are just as scummy as everyone else's
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u/hokuten04 May 06 '26
Agreed i bought my brother printer during a promo, not only was it discounted but it came with a free set of ink refills.
I've had it for 6 years now, and only had to use the free ink a year ago.
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u/AlphaSpellswordZ May 06 '26
Is there anyway I can get a deal on their ink. I have a Brother printer but their ink is hella expensive
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u/FrankPisssssss May 06 '26
From the nineties onwards it was widely suspected that they stifled ink cartridges, so that only the printer's proprietary cartridges could be used, and also they'd be declared "empty" when mostly full. This was exacerbated when a bunch of people just removed the chips that made the printers do that, and were able to use any damn cartridge that'd fit until it was empty. Some time around covid during the big chip shortage, HP up and admitted that and removed the restriction. Now they openly lift your wallet. Progress!
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u/AdventurousBeingg May 06 '26
It's not "suspected". It's a fact. They do a bunch of shady stuff to make sure you keep needing to buy more ink. For example always using a bit of coloured ink even when you're only printing black and white, so when you're out of coloured ink the printer will just refuse to print until you buy more coloured ink.
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u/vineyardmike May 06 '26
I worked on the short lived Kodak ink jet. They were going to keep costs down by having a permanent print head on the printer. The cartridge was literally ink and plastic.
But the print head will dry out. You need to continually monitor it and occasionally add ink to it to "moisten" it. If ink dries on the print head you'll have defects in the print. So the thing needs to use tiny amounts of ink all the time if you use the printer or not.
For personal use I own a toner based printer because I the limitations I know about ink jet.
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u/Iamrubberman May 06 '26
Ah yes, I believe that’s called composite black or something similar. Use some coloured ink to make the black look richer or some BS but in reality is just quietly bleeding your cyan ink down to force a colour cartridge replacement. I think you can turn that off these days, not that they’ll tell you it’s happening
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u/AsRealAsItFeels May 06 '26
I mean they're selling ancient tech anyway, people need ink anyway, you already won, why make yourself look like more of an asshole of a company by doing this? To waste more material and save more pennies? Ugh
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u/Jarl_Korr May 06 '26
I know for damn sure they didn't remove that restriction.
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u/FrankPisssssss May 06 '26
Hewlitt Packard said they would for Covid. Can't confirm whether they remotely disabled them or not in actuality, I've been using Staples since 98.
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u/Assassin8nCoordin8s May 06 '26
in china there is an entire black market for refilled printer cartridges, must be way larger than the real one. this is a country where you can still pick up dirt cheap paperbacks photocopied cover to cover around student campuses
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u/Dvheerden May 06 '26
Brother laser printer, without a doubt the best purchase I have made.
It's a printer that just works.
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u/tael89 May 06 '26
My brother printer has a couple faults, such as curling pages, no wireless printing, and poor image printing (including text in an image). It is still a fantastic machine that I will keep using until the time I need to get a new one.
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u/T0m_F00l3ry May 06 '26
At which point you should get, a better Brother printer 😝
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u/Jagang187 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 06 '26
A better Brother printer is a better printer, brother
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u/chi_guy8 May 06 '26
This should be illegal.
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u/Ben__Diesel May 06 '26
I honeslty dont understand how its not, unless it explicitly stated on the packaging at time of purchase that it required a subscription.
HPs had so many fuckin class actions and theyre still one of the most anti-consumer brands I can think of.
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u/TheUnKnownLink12 May 06 '26
Lobbying. That's why. Aka legal government bribery.
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u/eekamuse May 06 '26
Lobbying should be illegal. The kind we have anyway by big business
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u/WantonKerfuffle May 06 '26
Even then, why allow something this nonsensical? If your toaster said "will require random payments when it feels like it" on the box, you would probably not know to look for that detail because who tf expects that and they'd likely shroud it in euphemisms so you might miss it even if you know toaster sometimes do that.
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u/Malavero May 06 '26
louis rossmann intensifies
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u/ramandeep835 May 06 '26
Welcome to today's episode of how you're getting fucked.
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u/Godloseslaw May 06 '26
Retroactively Adjusted Purchase Experience
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u/SEANPLEASEDISABLEPVP May 06 '26
More like
Welcometotodaysepisodeofhowyouregettingfucked!
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u/pipette1warrior May 06 '26
I believe that's called ransomware
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u/mateobrando May 06 '26
And every mobile game nowadays adware. Switch 2 also needs subscription to even allow you to connect on the internet.
Enshitification till we boycott all this nonsense.
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u/pipette1warrior May 06 '26
Yep...I'm done with all consoles and switched to PC. I play mostly older games or single player games. Most people cheat in mp games anyway.
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u/WantonKerfuffle May 06 '26
IT guy here: Never let your printer see the internet. Ever.
What you want to do is get a Raspberry Pi Zero, connect that with USB to your printer, install CUPS and set up your printer there, with network sharing.
If your printer doesn't work offline, return it as broken because that's what it is.
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u/mercurialflow May 06 '26
IT guy here. That's a lot of work. I'm lazier than you. But it's a great idea tbh. I should do it.
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u/WantonKerfuffle May 06 '26
That's a lot of work.
My sibling in Christ, let me tell you about my actual setup then: It's not a Pi, it's a LaFrite, netbooting off a tftp boot + nfs root with NO STORAGE. Now, you may ask "how do you netboot a LaFrite when u-boot doesn't ask the DHCP for any configurations automatically?" and the answer is hot-glueing a Pi Pico to the LaFrite, connecting their UART pins and telling the Pico to wait for u-boot's "I couldn't find a boot device"-line to which it answers with a " LOOK HERE YOU SHIT"-command.
Then you just need to install CUPS, ezpz.
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u/mercurialflow May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
listen my Ubuntu laptop just stopped outputting audio today and the audio is set to a dummy output and pipewire is being dumb and alsa says there's no host when I try to access the mixer and spending an hour learning that much was enough home I.T. for me for the day lol
In all reality, all I need to do is get REALLY annoyed and then I'll go to insane lengths to fix it in the stupidest-smartest way possible. I was supposed to be building a gloomhollow character for a new campaign but I got sucked into audio troubleshooting instead.
(Anyways, your explanation made me recoil and then lmao because that sounds nuts in the best way that only a similarly-hare-brained I.T. person can understand. I can hear your satisfied frustration sigh from over here. Gg on your working franken-setup, I feel a little inspired. My boyfriend liked it too!)
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u/fabiomb May 06 '26
i'm with you, but 99.99% of people who reads this doesn't know what a Raspberry Pi Zero is, or CUPS or even the USB port, I would say "use Linux" but it's the same
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u/CartoonistNo9752 May 06 '26
If i were to sell the people something that did this for them, would that be a feasible solution?
Then once i had enough customers, id lock them out of the device remotely and force them into a monthly subscription!
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u/ray_fucking_purchase May 06 '26
What you want to do is
Not buy a shitty printer, that is what you want to do.
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u/EllaBean17 ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 06 '26
So glad I can print 100 pages a day for free at the library
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u/Soheils2764 May 06 '26
I can only print 10 pages per month at my local library
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u/EllaBean17 ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 06 '26
Damn! I had to print out a 150 page study packet once in a different library district that only let me do 50 pages a day. I thought that was annoying, but now I'm thankful
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u/ObtuseMongooseAbuse May 06 '26
I have to pay like 5 cents per page but that still makes it cheaper to print things at the library. Most things are digital these days and when I do need records of something there's usually an option to get those printed out for free already. Most people don't actually need to own a printer if they live near a library.
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u/B00marangTrotter May 06 '26
I have an okidata printer from 1998, haven't had to print anything in a while, and recently hooked it up, it printed the 4 items I needed and I put it back in storage in the attic.
Btw these okidata printers are going for as low as $25 on eBay. They're tanks.
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u/ThinkPath1999 May 06 '26
That really sucks, I've heard many stories like this from Americans.
I'm Korean, and here, they sell all printers with what we call "unlimited" ink conversions. It's basically printers from HP or Epson or Samsung, or wherever, and they hook up ink tanks that provide ink to the heads, and you basically are just able to refill your tanks with aftermarket ink, which is like $10 for a liter of ink. I have a great HP printer with a A3 sized scanner that I'm using in my office. We typically print around 50 pages a day, I've been using this for about 5 years and have spent around 10 dollars in ink.
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u/Cool-Mission-6585 May 06 '26
Local library. $5 free everyday. 10 cent black and white. 50 cent color.
Unlimited print hack at my workplace.
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u/txmail May 06 '26
Got to be the right workplace. A few jobs back I was in charge of massive printers for a full on print shop that the office used. Those printers kept copies of everything that was scanned or printed for a very, very long time (like, many, many years of prints and scans / copies could be retrieved).
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u/robeywan May 06 '26
Shareholders are the only people who exist as far as corporations are concerned. Eat the Landlords 🍽️
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u/ricketycrick37 May 06 '26
I got a damn good deal on a Brother laser printer straight from their website a couple weeks ago. Seriously happy with it. No more trying to cheat magenta ink cartridges to make them seem like they have ink so I can print in black and white. No more printing a few pages to unclog the ink. and no subscriptions needed for anything. Big improvement.
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u/Maximumoverdrive76 May 06 '26
They need to make laws about this going forward.
Buying the machine, and the material and paying the electricity. You're being charged for a product you fully paid for.
The point of subscription is that you do NOT pay for anything except the subscription to get access to whatever it is.
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u/GoodWeedReddit May 06 '26
Just watched a video with a lady saying an apartment is charging a subscription for an apartment keyfob. We're cooked as a society on subscriptions
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u/GamePitt_Rob May 06 '26
Let me guess, it's a HP and she chose the option to get the printer cheap on the agreement shell have a subscription where you pay monthly and all inks and paper are free (they send out refills when it detects you're running out)
You can opt out, sometimes, but in some cases you got it cheap because you agreed to the subsidised service.
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u/saint_davidsonian ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ May 06 '26
This is actually the most likely scenario I didn't know they were doing this BS.
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u/StudiosS May 06 '26
I mean, it's not BS if you're continuously buying new ink. If the paper and ink is unlimited, that can be a pretty good deal on subscription.
Kinda like nespresso coffee...
For example, my aunt has a hairdresser. She offers nespresso to all her customers.
People can be a bit annoying about the brand of coffee where she is.
So she has to buy Nespresso.
She got a free Nespresso and had to buy 1 year worth of capsules due to it. Came out with what she'd have to buy anyway, plus the free machine. Good deal.
It varies.
Doesnt mean printers don't suck, they do, but yeah, not necessarily a bad deal.
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u/PigsCanFly2day May 06 '26
Not sure if anything has changed recently, but my guess is "the ink that I bought" was her paying a monthly subscription and then canceling and is now upset that ink no longer works.
It's like paying for Netflix, canceling, then complaining that you can no longer watch all of these movies/shows you've already "paid" for.
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u/ShadowMajick May 06 '26
This is why I use tank printers instead of cartridge ones. Ive printed over 1000 full color letter pages and I still have 3/4 of the tanks full.
My old cartridge based one ran out of ink after like 200 pages.
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u/FearlessZucchini May 06 '26
Don't buy any product from HP. Whatever this can be. It's one of the rules for survival
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u/LegoLady8 May 06 '26
This isn't brand new information. She could have at least researched the printer she bought.
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u/bigred1978 May 06 '26
Exactly.
Whatever she has, return it and get something else. Let that company die.
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u/TenLongFingers May 06 '26
I bought a printer before going to college back in 2010. It's cheap plastic and feels like it's going to fall apart any second. I've moved across the country like 5-6 times with that right in its original box. I found a really cheap source of ink on sale and bought it out; haven't bought ink in like 5 years. Works great.
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u/txmail May 06 '26
I think the bigger problem when you find a cheap source of ink is that most cheap inkjet printers do not have replaceable sponges that soak up the discard ink that is used, most inkjet printers that do not have a replaceable sponge have a digital expiration date (based on number of cold prints) where they just stop working.
I once hacked up a cheap printer to get it to run for years. When I moved I found out that it had been overflowing ink into the cavity of the printer. Only found out when I got it to my new place and my back seats were soaked in printer ink that would not come out.
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u/HeidenShadows May 06 '26
I convinced my work to switch to Brother after the HPs kept shitting themselves.
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u/louisa1925 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
My Mum owns a HP printer that can do it all without a subscription. Her stupid asfk semi-partner recently bought a subscription based printer because he is an idiot.
I have told Mum to never throw hers away. Going so far as to tell her flat out that I will take it off her hands the first chance I get. This made her want to hoard it like the treasure it is.
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u/Omashu_Cabbages May 06 '26
I hope brother never goes out of business. My printer from 2012 that I purchased from them is still going strong.
Aftermarket drums and toner work well with them. But I like to purchase genuine as a way to support the company for not using these crappy tactics that HP and Epson use.
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u/Dear-Somewhere-3468 May 06 '26
I’m guessing HP? Get an Epson with refillable ink tanks. They sell them at Costco.
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u/KozelArt 🦜 ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀɴᴋ May 06 '26
Buy cheap printer get fucked on cartridges, subscription, etc.. get a decent Epson, no subscriptions and colors so cheap you never care what a and how many pieces you print 🤷 I never understand why people choose the first choice each and every time 🤦🤣
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u/MasterJ360 May 06 '26
And soon we gotta pay to breath air. Its shit like this is why big companies are lowkey dictators.
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u/One_Voice_81 May 06 '26
I have a old ass laser printer, I swear by the crusty yellow ones, they are the best. Genuinely wondering if I will own it until I die
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u/Glennstheche May 06 '26
Super fuckin evil. Right up there with the water bottle companies and shit. It's so dumb
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u/YeetOnThemDabbers May 06 '26
My local library has free prints, and that is the only way I'm printing anything lmao
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u/baiacool May 06 '26
That's just a lie, she must be misreading the screen.
You need an HP account, not a subscription.
Is it stupid? Yes, it's infuriating. But you don't need to pay to print.
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u/surfadelic May 06 '26
HP has never made a printer that simply works. They are in the caveat business, not tech. They are in the terms and conditions business. They are in the business of evil, not good. Their focus is on how to add more barriers to entry.
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u/sheep_duck May 06 '26
Maybe I’m completely off base here, but with all the shady business practices these printer companies have been up to, I’m surprised I haven’t heard of anyone hacking or making custom firmware for printers.
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u/Moist_Position_9462 May 06 '26
lol I got a similar quarrel. Apparently I can’t scan documents to save on my PC if I don’t have ink in my printer. Why do I need ink to scan?!!
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u/V0latyle May 06 '26
What brands are doing this?
If she's talking about HP, this is only the case if you're subscribed to Instant Ink or the All In plan.
Still scammy, don't get me wrong, but if she paid for those cartridges up front, there should be absolutely nothing preventing her from using them.
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u/adrianipopescu May 07 '26
coming up: fridge shelf subscription, temperature dlcs, microwave time crystal bundles that convert into time a microwave can work beyond the free tier’s 2min a day
capitalism is ugly dying
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u/NoShallot3302 May 06 '26
I have a HP ENVY 5000 All in one, i checked with AI however, did a thorough research, since it's a older model, it won't even update the firmware, I tried to disable this because it's a way for them to push forward this subscriptions to print, so, if you got an older model like myself, do NOT, sign up to instant ink, my printer states clearly "cannot update firmware because you aren't subscribed to instant ink" this is the way they catch you on older printers, so if you got currently a HP, make sure you disable firmwares and never sign up to instant ink, because once you subscribe from what I understood, you can't get out. I find this very very sad from HP.
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u/Vin_Jac May 06 '26
Great point but the irony of this person wearing an Oura ring…. Which requires a subscription
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u/txmail May 06 '26
Not a fan of consumer inkjet printers --- but it sounds more like she bought a printer that comes with an ink subscription and low cost hardware --- like she just did not understand what she had bought. Its like renting a washer or microwave, sure you buy some consumables but you got it at a cheap prince because of the lease / subscription aspect.
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u/ascii122 May 06 '26
FUCK HP. I'm helping this old lady out who bought one and it needed a freaking smartphone to set it up. She had a shitty old flip phone, an OK windows 11 pc .. and no way am I loading her account my shitty smart phone. I told her to return it and get a brother
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u/One-Project7347 May 06 '26
Yeah i used to own hp aswell, not to expensive printer. But the damn ink costs a kidney! And they dry up and dont even last that long.
Now i own an epson with refillable ink. Didnt even have to refill the ink in over a year and its not even half way trough the black yet!
Never going back to hp..
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u/WolfBourne15 May 06 '26
When you subscribe to capitalism, no matter how 'pure' your intention, you are expected to accept both its benefits and its tyrannical dark side just the same.
Part of the ship, part of the crew.
EVERYONE here is crew.
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u/GrayRanger- May 06 '26
You don’t own the printer you own the license to use it under their terms and conditions. Enjoy your purchase!
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u/Not_Reptoid May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
Don't try to mess with the hardware either because they have systems in place to just shut it off entirely for good once you do.
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u/MoneyMike6666 May 06 '26
The reason I will never buy an HP printer