zlacker

I've got a Brother laser printer that's probably old enough to vote now. It's impressive that it's lasted this long, but the whole business model of printing is so rotten I still wonder how much I want it around when the toners have run completely dry. On top of the installation being a mess.

I've seen that companies like Brother make dedicated shipping label printers, and I guess that's what I realistically would use my printer for the most.

Brother's clearly doing horrible stuff, but printers also seem like a terrible business model when you ship products that live forever without maintenance beyond refilling the paper tray and toner.

If only the e-ink display technology weren't encumbered by so many patents, maybe that's what we'd be reading most things on now instead.

>>kmfrk+(OP)
Same for me. I think I was introduced to Brother printers in 2006, and bought my first then. That HL-2140 is still kicking, although it doesn't do much nowadays (a digital office, as it turns out, needs paper hard copies quite infrequently!)

A MFC I bought a couple years later is still going strong.