2024-04-03
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Anyway, here’s the best printer for 2024: a Brother laser printer. You can just pick any one you like; I have one with a sheet feeder and one without a sheet feeder. Both of them have reliably printed return labels and random forms and pictures for my kid to color for years now, and I have never purchased replacement toner for either one. Neither has fallen off the WiFi or insisted I sign up for an ink-related hostage situation or required me to consider the ongoing schemes of HP executives who seem determined to make people hate a legendary brand with straightforward cash grabs and weird DRM ideas.
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- Nilay Patel (The Verge)
It's sort-of alarming that Brother are the only big player in the printer space who subscribe to a philosophy of "don't treat the customers like livestock". Presumably all it'd take is a board-level decision to flip the switch from "not evil" to "evil" and we'd lose something valuable. Thankfully, for now at least, they still clearly see the value of the positive marketing the world gives them. Positive marketing like like this article.
The article is excellent, by the way. I know that I'm "supposed" to stir up hatred about the fact that its conclusion is written by an AI but... well, just read it for yourself and you'll see why I don't mind even one bit. Top notch reporting. Consider following the links within it to stories about how other printer manufacturers continue to show exactly how shitty they can be.
I recommended a Brother printer to the Vagina Museum the other month. I assume it 's still working out fine for them (and not ripping them off, spying on them, and/or contributing to the destruction of the the planet).
My blog post about recommending a Brother printer to the Vagina Museum