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[return to "Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia"]
1. carpen+Z3[view] [source] 2022-06-24 11:48:51
>>b112+(OP)
I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now.

Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers".

I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device that might, at the whim of the manufacturer, decide that the way I'm using it is not okay anymore, is probably designed to break after two years, requires me to sign up for a subscription service for ink, or whatever BS else the decision makers in this space come up with.

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2. cmsong+Nm[view] [source] 2022-06-24 13:33:39
>>carpen+Z3
IMO, this is a byproduct of capitalism. Do you own Brother stock? (Don't even know if Brother is public.) If you own Brother stock, then you care about the stock price. I'm guessing Brother executives compensation is related to Brother stock price. Markets price in profit growth. Printing has long ago progressed to the point that further improvements are not needed for the human eye -- so Brother can hardly make more money by making a better printer.

It's why industries need to be regulated. A company run for shareholder value is going to maximize profits and externalize costs. This class of behavior is not at all unique to this product segment or this industry. You think this is annoying? Gonna be somewhere between interesting to horrifying to see what big tech does if the profit growth flags.

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