I've owned 4 Brother printers since the 90s. The first one lasted more than a decade, and I put it through the wringer. The next one lasted about the same, including a stint as EIC of a magazine which meant I printed a ton of proofs on that poor thing. They all worked easily with Linux, to boot.
I currently own two, one color and one multi-function B&W. They don't actually get a ton of usage but <knocks wood> they work when I need them to and I'm not constantly buying toner for the things.
(I'm sure other folks have horror stories because somebody always does no matter what product, but they've served me well enough - and certainly Brother doesn't seem to be as customer hostile as HP.)
This would be extremely disappointing to me if Brother has gone the way of the dodo because I specifically bought a Brother printer for this reason and continued to buy their OEM cartridges and toners as a means of support. I've been voting with my dollars and would like some evidence that this is the case and possibly that this is intentional before I bring out the pitchfork on this one.