Epson Boobytrapped Its Printers

Epson Boobytrapped Its Printers(pluralistic.net)

29 points by URfejk 3 years ago | 13 comments

fezfight 3 years ago |

Anyone working on a free and open 3d printable printer? Let's just download this car already and begin ignoring these vampires.

URfejk 3 years ago | |

That would be great. I could finally start printing my own banknotes. :)

superchroma 3 years ago | |

Yeah, I'm ready.

albert_e 3 years ago |

How are companies operating in a competitive market able to get away with this blatantly anti-consumer behavior.

It's not like there are high barriers to entry in this market, nor there is any exclusive licensing or access hurdles -- like telecom spectrum, or fiber lines for ISPs. Nor are there any compatibility exclusions (proprietary connectors, protocols or walled gardens).

thrashh 3 years ago | |

A good printer requires good components and that costs $$$

For most people, they want a printer for convenience but not enough to pay good money for good parts

So this market of shittier printers with cheap parts exist. While I hate cheap inkjet printers, they did work enough for what I needed them for and they didn’t cost a fortune… so the market continues to exist

/shrug

superchroma 3 years ago | |

US government willfully asleep at the wheel and not exerting anything more than minimum regulatory pressure.

nicolaslem 3 years ago | |

It is a dying market though.

bzzzt 3 years ago | | |

With al these planned obsolescense gimmicks I’d think the replacement market will be there quite a while.

baileycoffee 3 years ago |

Consumer grade printers are a barren wasteland of planned obsolescence and anti-consumer practices. I recommend everyone that needs a printer in their home spend the extra couple of hundred dollars and buy an office grade printer. The difference between our current HP OfficeJet color laser printer/scanner/copier (cost about $450) and our previous cheapo under $100 consumer grade ink jet printer is unbelievable. Well worth the extra cash and it’s a total workhorse that feels like it’ll last for years.

bediger4000 3 years ago | |

I will view HP printers suspiciously if I'm ever in the market again, and I won't consider Canon unless everything else is a poor fit. Both brands just make it hard for no good reason. Canon in particular makes using their printers with anything other than Windows arbitrarily difficult.

tailspin2019 3 years ago | | |

For what it’s worth, I’ve always had good results from Brother printers (both B&W and colour laser). They seem to be no-nonsense and reliable in my experience. Even their very cheap models. And no issues working with Macs.

Can't vouch for other types eg. inkjet models though, as I try to avoid those!