15 years ago, I bought the cheapest laser I could find, which was a Brother. Put two cartridges in it over the years, and last year it died. Some devices couldn't print to it due to driver issues, but it was easy enough to send to another device to print. Otherwise literally no complaints.
I did some comparison shopping, and while Brother was no longer the cheapest, it was still pretty cheap. I'm not sure most of my family even remembers it's a different one, other than it printing more easily from every device.
I replaced one grey box with another, but I mostly get to ignore it, and that's wonderful.