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HP wants you to pay up to $36/month to rent a printer that it monitors
(arstechnica.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I'll just point out that I have a 20 year old Dell business class color laser printer. Got it off Craigslist a few years ago for 40 bucks. It has Ethernet, with a webui. You can disable the toner chips if you want and only lose toner amount estimates and then use any toner you want. We even got the duplex attachment for it a few years ago.
It is literally at least 3 feet tall and weighs at least 50 lbs.
It literally makes all the lights in my house flick when we turn it on. We once blew a circuit when it turned on.
We lovingly call it the Old Ding Dong Printer.
As long as it works, why would I ever replace it? Products have gone downhill.
In part that's why they keep adding these anti-consumer features. They don't want you to buy something lasting 40 years. That said I will buy original toner when the time comes from Brother, because they deserve the income for not being assholes. I only wish they had recycling services in my country so I could keep the e-trash to a minimum.