With all the praise Brother laser printers get for being just a damn printer, I wonder what the end game is for some of those businesses.
I can understand that monetisation and user well-being can be at odds sometimes (e.g. with free apps and services), but surely a generic hardware manufacturer wants to ensure a generic experience?
This is why I tend to buy things that use generic, open standards. I don't trust something that needs an app to work to last long.
> surely a generic hardware manufacturer wants to ensure a generic experience?
What they want, first and foremost, is to not be a generic hardware manufacturer.
Quite a lot of those user-hostile choices - custom apps, SaaS-ification, focus on collaboration features - are attempts to prevent the product from being a commodity.
For example, I can replace my current washing machine with any other model of any other brand. Independently, I can use any brand of detergent with my machine. Both the machine and the detergent are commodity products. They mostly compete on price and marketing bullshit, which offers very limited margins. Modern tech companies desperately want to avoid being in this situation.
The most common - but by far not the only - approach of ensuring you can't be easily commoditized is through network effects. Not just "I can't switch from Facebook to Diaspora because all my friends are on Facebook", but also the weaker forms: "I can't stop using Teams because everyone at work uses Teams, and we can't switch because of SharePoint integration - which also incidentally means we have to use MS Office and Windows". Or, "I can't stop using Google Docs because a bunch of non-techies I have to deal with don't know how to (or don't want to) use anything else".
This is why companies fight interoperability[0] tooth and nail - breaking lock-in for users threatens breaking the weak network effects they need.
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[0] - Except "API interoperability", which isn't really proper interoperability for users, as it's governed by business contracts between API providers and API consumers.
> Or, "I can't stop using Google Docs because a bunch of non-techies I have to deal with don't know how to (or don't want to) use anything else".
Interesting example. I’ve worked with two organizations this year (one large, one small), both of whom happily use gmail, google docs etc. In both cases people expressed surprise that my address wasn’t gmail.com, that on a screen share my search was different etc.
Some of these people expressed concerns about privacy but clearly had no understanding of how pervasive the spy infrastructure is. And why should they? Their expertise lay in other domains.
The private sector has a lot to answer for and an government-driven response (driven by a combination of experts, ignorami, and grandstanders) will be their own fault.
> What they want, first and foremost, is to not be a generic hardware manufacturer.
Every once in a while I day dream about starting a company[0] called something like "Generic Products" where all we do is make the most basic bog-standard things with no extra garbage or marketing bullshit, striving to have as few different models as possible. Amazon basics and https://xkcd.com/993/ are similar ideas.
[0] Never let me start a company, I am not suited for this job.
We can do a joint venture with my occasional day-dream company, which would sell appliances designed for longevity - e.g. an electric kettle or hairdryer designed to last you a 100 years. Featuring generic packaging[0], lifetime warranty, and extreme repairability - with CAD and circuit diagrams in the box, and spare parts available for as long as they can be manufactured. If any substantial change happens over the years (e.g. we change AC frequencies or switch from AC to DC mains), the company would also sell conversion kits.
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[0] - Seriously, xkcd/993 is what I dream the shopping experience to look like.
If we are ever able to significantly increase human lifespans and/or birth rates decline, I wouldn't be surprised to see a business model similar to this eventually outcompete all others.
Even with the brief few decades of existence we might get (if we're lucky) now, the planned obsolescence and bullshit, mind-cluttering marketing gets really old for most of us well before we're halfway through it.
> I can understand that monetisation and user well-being can be at odds sometimes (e.g. with free apps and services)
This is also the case in paid services, who are not known to be more user/privacy-friendly.
> This is why I tend to buy things that use generic, open standards. I don't trust something that needs an app to work to last long.
Same here. Unfortunately, it's becoming increasingly harder! Fortunately the second-hand market is inundated with hardware that has proved its reliability thus far... I feel definitely more at risk when i have to buy new hardware.
> With all the praise Brother laser printers get for being just a damn printer, I wonder what the end game is for some of those businesses.
Why does a company need an end game? That implies there are winners and losers, with the winner taking all. Shouldn't we be striving for a more diverse business environment, where there is credible competition to help keep the actions of businesses in check? Wouldn't this be a healthier environment for businesses as well, since they could focus upon long term sustainability?
Well, two thoughts. 1) long term sustainability matters more to stakeholders than it does to shareholders 2) you need an endgame because its compete or get out-competed, so a company that had better, more consumer focused practices holistically might close after a rough patch, leaving more competitively fit companies behind.
Tragedy of the commons. Its why we need government that isn't business controlled, to care for the common good and help steer against problems where local incentives drive everyone to a stable but sort of terrible state.
> I wonder what the end game is for some of those businesses.
The end game is often an annual bonus for a decision maker at the business that doesn't think they will be there in 2 years when there might be fallout. The incentive is short term gain for me, I wouldn't be here in the long run so whey should I care about the long run.
I suspect one printer company is making money hand over fist. The rest look pretty sickly to me. They are all desperately trying to shift to services in an attempt to shore up their profits.
I hate my brother printer. Now I have to do some weird black magic that involves pulling out the power cable and paper tray and inserting the cable while holding some buttons in order for it to even turn on.
A year earlier it suddenly stopped being able to print wirelessly and, as with all cartridge printers, the ink is crazy expensive.
A month ago I bought an HP printer with an ink reservoir for my mother and it is great. You don't need apps to print and printing costs nothing compared to traditional printing. It comes with ink for about 10k pages and new ink costs around 10 euros.
The best in class for ink-tank printers are supposedly Epson and instead of buying new ink for my own printer, I'll probably just buy one of those.
When people talk about good reliable Brother printers they're always talking about their cheap laser line.
Inkjet printers exist in two forms: Quality photo printers and complete garbage.
They are not for documents or other normal printing, that's what laser printers are for. Your primary printer should not be an inkjet unless you only ever print color photos.
> Your primary printer should not be an inkjet unless you only ever print color photos.
And unless you print photos very regularly or sometimes need them right-this-instant-gods-damn-it, you are usually better off going to a local shop and having them printed there on better paper with better equipment, cheaper.
My main printer is a relatively inexpensive[†] laser, that has a true-black-only mode.
[†] not _absolutely_inexpensive, because I wanted the luxury of automatic duplex and the cheapest models out there are rather unreliable or nearly as expensive/inconvenient to keep running long-term as some inkjets.
> And unless you print photos very regularly or sometimes need them right-this-instant-gods-damn-it, you are usually better off going to a local shop and having them printed there on better paper with better equipment, cheaper.
If I had any need for colour prints, it would be a viable option since there is a shop a block away. For many people who regularly print in colour, the cost of the printer could be justified by the time it takes to stop off at the shop to pick up the prints. That being said, I don't see consumer grade colour printers fitting this role.
Convenience is why I maintain a relatively inexpensive laser printer. I could easily print off 10 pages per week of work related documents at work, but racing across the building only to discover the printer isn't working (which it isn't about 10% of the time) and having to work around that problem for a good chunk of the day isn't worth the trouble of saving about $50/year.
> For many people who regularly print in colour, the cost of the printer could be justified by the time it takes to stop off at the shop to pick up the prints
Agreed. Though for me, assuming an inkjet in full quality mode isn't at least an order of magnitude faster than they were last time I had a supposedly high-spec one, printing a few A4 prints (or more of a smaller size), even assuming no “need several head cleans as I've not used the device for a week or two” or “had to reprint as something went odd half-way through a page” issues or similar, would take longer than marching to the nearest shop with printing facility, printing there, and getting home! Time of day makes a difference of course, my nearest 24-hour place is a noticeably further walk.
> Convenience is why I maintain a relatively inexpensive laser printer.
Same, mostly. I like to be able to print things to annotate. Wasteful environment wise but I'll take the deserved selfishness accusation on the chin there! The main use for it ATM is printing custom maps and other notes for trail runs, on fancy “thin but indestructible” paper that I doubt a print shop would offer, and sometimes being able to make a late correction before heading out to travel to the start is useful.
Better yet: get rid of all printers. Stop printing. I haven’t needed to print anything in the past 28 months. When I do need to print something it’s a 5 minute walk to the town library where I can print 100 sheets for free every month.
I was away when our printer ran out of toner. My son called me concerned that he had an assignment due and needed to print something out.
As I wasn’t home I had to resort to online. Amazon would deliver an entire laser printer in an hour for less than the cost of a new toner cartridge (no generic cartridges in the one hour service).
Five years later we are still on the starter toner cartridge that came with that printer.
If your life aligns with it, great (I also like that you're using the public library, I'm on my local library board and we also have b/w and color printer/copiers for patrons)!
To reduce my printing and improve my own convenience, I replaced my failing twelve year old Brother laser with a Brother laser multifunction. Now when I deal with paperwork for my accountant, lawyer, bank, etc. I scan and send them a PDF. I made a scan of my signature and apply it as needed. With a few exceptions this has been acceptable. The kitchen chromebook is still no substitute for printing out recipes, though :)
Some of us have use cases where this won’t work. :)
I happen to like my photo printer. Ordering a hundred 13x19 prints would cost more than all that I spent on the printer, ink, and paper.
I still use my ten-year-old laser printer several times per month. Usually for RPG character sheets or paper copies of notes. Sometimes I’ll print out a story I’m beta reading. If I need a printout at 7pm on a Monday, the library isn’t open.
I have gone digital with a lot of things, for instance: all of my handwritten notes go on a reMarkable 2 now.
I can understand that monetisation and user well-being can be at odds sometimes (e.g. with free apps and services), but surely a generic hardware manufacturer wants to ensure a generic experience?
This is why I tend to buy things that use generic, open standards. I don't trust something that needs an app to work to last long.