More precisely it’s because the EU has no fiscal unified fiscal policy. Every member is a currency user of a foreign currency it must acquire from the ECB.
Wynne Godley explained this all nicely in Maastricht and All That.
I didn’t end up as a carpenter early in my career, but I have been FoH staff in a restaurant. Turns, or how fast you can move your tables, was the main driver in income for you and the restaurant.
LLM code is kind of the same, it speeds up how quickly you can turn over the code to adapt to whatever new biz requirements have come down the pike.
But make sure you buy Brother toner because when you use third party toner the print quality is intentionally degraded. Cheap, but not all that cheerful IMHO.
The problem is the modern incarnation of the company intentionally destroying their customers' products after a purchase, so explaining it away as only one product line isn't really applicable. The problem is any trusting of that company going forward, by buying any new products of theirs.
My printer is an HP DeskJet 1220C, which first came out in 2000 (it's got USB and parallel ports). I like it because the "ink cartridges" include the print heads, meaning they're easy to replace if they start getting clogged [0]. But that doesn't mean I'm going to recommend HP as a brand to anyone, given the shenanigans of their newer printers.
[0] As what happened to my previous-to-me but newer-model Photosmart 6520. Cleaned them out good with alcohol, got it working again, then it clogged up again in short order. Figuring out the actual problem there has been a bit beyond me.
It seems like printer companies are overcharging for ink but they probably aren't. None of the printer companies are generating huge profits.
I believe people are probably buying the wrong printer. If they print a lot, they should be buying an ink-tank printer. The printers cost a little more, but the consumables are very inexpensive.
If they are infrequent printers, they should buy whatever cheap printer they want and then sign up for that companies ink subscription. You mentioned HP and they probably have the best ink subscription program. For light use it's $1.49 / month which is going to be enough for a lot of people. It's nice to never have to order ink.
I think the benefits of laser printers are more relevant for infrequent printing. You can leave a laser printer unused for months and it'll just print perfectly - ink jet printers will often have issues if you leave them unused. Also the toner cartridges will last for years.
> If they are infrequent printers, they should buy whatever cheap printer they want and then sign up for that companies ink subscription
erm, do any of these subscription services work without having to subject yourself to surveillance of everything you print? I can't imagine the companies are just content to take your word for the amount you've printed or when you need more ink. Off the cuff, I would guess most will force you to even compromise your personal computer itself by installing some proprietary malware.
FWIW the HP official black cartridge for the 1220C is ~$70, whereas generics are under $20. I'm sure the generics cut corners a little bit, but not $50 worth of corners. HP is most certainly overcharging for ink.
But the general failure pattern in our society isn't massive profits going to company owners, but rather ever growing management and administrative layers taking the surplus as their own salaries.
They don’t. These days most people are printing pages from their phone and printer companies don’t get deep access to iOS and Android like they do with Linux and Windows.
The printer counts the pages and sends the page count and ink levels to the mother ship and ink just shows up exactly when you need it.
> massive profits
These companies don’t have rivers of cash flowing into them. Selling and supporting printers and ink isn’t a great business. The software and hardware is expensive and hard to make. The ink is the only thing with a good margin on it and people just don’t use all that much of it.
Lots of businesses operate like this so I’m not sure why people are so upset at printer companies. When I buy a game for my PS5, I get about $2 worth of plastic and cardboard and they charge me $60 or more. Obviously it costs money to make the game and they spread that over all the copies. Well, same goes for printers and their consumables.
If you want cheap ink, buy a printer with cheap ink. They are out there and they are great. If you want to spend as little as possible on a printer, that’s out there too. You just pay more down the line for consumables.
> The printer counts the pages and sends the page count and ink levels to the mother ship and ink just shows up exactly when you need it.
So is the printer running secure (ie libre) firmware so I can know it's not also backhauling the content of what is printed for some imagined "legitimate" business purpose? Or are you saying that I am just supposed to trust the printer manufacturer based on their marketing? If I am supposed to be content just trusting them with the content of what I print, then I might as well dispense with "owning" a device that requires (space, supplies, maintenance) and just pick up prints at Staples.
> Lots of businesses operate like this so I’m not sure why people are so upset at printer companies. When I buy a game for my PS5, I get about $2 worth of plastic and cardboard and they charge me $60 or more
Because it's straight up anti-competitive bundling that would be taken to task if there were any semblance of anti-trust enforcement. Printers and ink for printers should be separate markets. A manufacturer should not be able to abuse their market share of printers in order to make people buy ink from them as well.
People are also most certainly concerned with proprietary locked down platforms (eg PS5, iDevices, web services). The topic of printers is just especially galling because it was an industry that got along just fine before using technological and legal restrictions to kill competition. Newer markets have been locked down from their creation, so people have a harder time imagining better. That anti-competitive arrangements have been allowed to fester across our society is a major problem, not some kind of perverse validation.
(Your example of game pricing also drags in the deliberate monopoly of copyright, but I addressed the substance of the anticompetitive bundling/subsidizing consoles with games)
It's surprising that Chinese companies have not stepped into fill the printer gap. For most places where American companies stagnated, Asian ones (cars, renewables, sub-$500 smartphones) came in and ate their lunch.
At home I have a laser Brother from around 2000s that i rescued from the dumpster, the last time I needed it it had spent probably 5 years untouched in the garage, plugged it in and printed away without problems, no clogs, no firmware updates, no 2gb of install packages just a driver, no BS.
With scanner in Germany, only if some discount action, meanwhile most similar inkjets are around 80 €, and naturally cheaper in similar discount actions.
The version with no scanner that they recommend is about 100 euro (I think that precise version is now discontinued, but its successor, the Brother-HL-L2400DW, is also about 100 euro).
Practical, reliable, affordable and just works technology; The amazing Brother HL-L2320D printer. I can't remember the last time I bought toner. The thing just keeps on printing. I think they make a wireless version, but I can't be bothered to change something that just works the way this printer has. We have fancy printers at work that are also Laser based and they are not as reliable the printer sitting next to me.
It's been my situation, I have had my Brother laser printer for... more than 8 years and I still run on the toner that was delivered with the printer ! Yellow ran low a few years ago, and the printer wouldn't print anymore, so I select "print black & white", and the printer happily keeps working using the black toner only :)
Because the VAST majority of people that purchase printers are super casual users, that will maybe print out 10-20 pages a year, and let the printer collect dust rest of the time.
Being the "IT guy" among family/friends/colleagues, 9 out of 10 times that's the case. Someone asks me if I can help them with their printer, they bought it 1-3 years ago, they've barely used it, but need new ink cartridge.
It's always the same printers. They saw one on sale for $40 or whatever at some big box store, a bought it.
In which case you _particularly_ want laser, because laser printers will keep working for that sort of duty cycle, whereas if not used semi-regularly, most ink cartridges will need replacing even if not empty.
Although those aren’t the only two technologies. I have a wax printer, which has similar behaviour for photo prints. Only… it isn’t quite precise enough to do text very well, and it’s A5. But otherwise it’s great!
I don’t look forward to running out of consumables. For some reason these aren’t made anymore.
Someone printing 10 to 20 pages a year is not interested in the capital expenditure of a laser printer. They want something with as little up-front expenditure as possible.
The reality of different places are... different. Here (Brazil) the cheapest laser printer costs 3x the price of an ink jet printer, and it only prints monochrome. Doesn't make sense for a printer for personal use in a home that will be used once in a while.
To be honest, nowadays I would prefer ink tank, as their extra cost (here) are smaller than the price of the cartridges that will need to be bought in the next years. And they are cheaper than the cheapest laser printers sold here.
Black and white? Color? Printing documents or photos? How much and how often are you printing?
I bought a B&W brother laser printer in 2015 and loved it. I had a cheap $80 inkjet and while it worked fine I printed so rarely that my ink cartridge would dry out.
The original brother toner cartridge lasted me 4 years so I'm happy just because of that.
I ended up giving that to my parents and got a brother color laser printer. It's nice for documents but inkjets are superior for photo printing.
But for the last 10-15 years I can upload photos to the Walgreens a mile away and get them in less than an hour on real photo paper and don't have to worry about them fading like a lot of inkjets.
Because you can get a basic inkjet printer with included cartridges for $30 vs $350 for a color laser printer + toner. I'm sure the latter makes sense if you are printing at scale, but for occasional use there's really no point spending that much.
I think this shows the problem though.
When I was younger you had to save for a printer for a considerate amount of time, the equivalent of hundreds of dollars was normal.
Now there are customers that think they can buy a printer for the equivalent of a round of beer, and when that doesn't work out as expected it's only the evil companies.
More often than not the consumer goes for the cheapest, and that's what they get and the company has to make the profit elsewhere.
I appreciate that with all the legal wrangling and anti-competitive behaviour the supplier companies don't paint a very attractive picture, but the consumer decisions have made the bed for this market as well.
But if you are only printing occasionally why not go to FedEx and print your document there?
I've chosen to have Black and White only at home, and go to FedEx for my color pages. I do black and white text often enough that it's worth it. But I really don't do color enough to warrant a printer (or upgrading to a more expensive color printer even)
You know it's 10c a page, you can email it to them and pick it up later... right?
It's also a FedEx, so I'm pretty sure they can FexEx you the printout for an additional fee and deliver it. But FedEx Office Centers are all over my area and are common pickups during grocery shopping or other tasks I have around town.
There probably is a cheaper local printer that you should support rather than big business FedEx btw. Local marketing and local printers would likely accept your print jobs and supporting your town is a good idea.
--------
Consolidated office print jobs also stock rarer papers (cardstock, oversized, legal, etc. etc) and support more styles of print jobs anyway.
You should have a home printer for your most common printing task (which is almost certainly jost plain black and white documents). But if you need serious print jobs with good bindings, cover sheets and less common paper weights (ex: 100lb cardstock or something) in colors and other advanced features that's a printer you go to.
I mean the printer in your local towns main street, and FedEx if they've taken over your town.
The problem I have with cheap inkjets for occasional use is that they tend to stop working after just 1-3 years. A lot of people say it's because the ink dries up and clogs up the works if you don't print regularly. I'm not sure if that's an accurate explanation, and maybe I'm just unlucky, but reliability is the only real complaint I have about inkjets.
A few reasons. Laser doesn't do well with thicker or textured paper. More durability in commercial situations. And then there is color. The Epson EcoTank line seems to be selling very well.
Colour laser printers whilst being more expensive, produce better quality output for colour documents than ink does in my opinion. You don't get the horizontal lines that you sometimes get with inkjets where the ink overlaps a bit.
However, inkjets are probably better for printing photos, but I'd recommend just using a photo printing service if that's what you're after (assuming that they're not private photos that you don't want to share).
Regarding Linux and printers, I use Fedora as my daily driver, and I have a cheap HP OfficeJet printer from 2016, and I'm amazed by how well it "just works" with both printing from any application and scanning with the GNOME Document Scanner application. My wife actually has more issues printing from her Windows 10 machine (e.g. we periodically have to go through the Windows settings to "add printer" again) and scanning with the actual HP software.
I've used Linux on and off since 2005, and every time I've come back to Linux I've been impressed with the progress made on things like this.
Depends what your substrate is. Inkjet still works better for things like vinyl, photo paper, and heat-sensitive stuff. I'm not sure you can do borderless printing on a laser printer, either. For everyday office and personal print jobs, it's hard to beat the convenience and relative reliability of a laser printer, but inkjets still have their (niche) place in the world.
Because inkjets print prettier pictures, are more versatile, don't have long start up times, don't generate indoor ozone.
There are professional inkjets available that are more respectful of your right to buy cheap supplies than even brother - specifically I can pour bottled ink into printers of at least two manufacturers.
And (professional) modern inkjets keep up with print speed.
What's the quality of color prints on current lasers? Last time I checked it was quite below inkjets. Not that I would recommend inkjet to anyone, they're unusable in home setting where you have long periods of time without printing.
Colour photos are probably better on inkjets, but colour documents look great from my Brother colour laser. Images come out really well, but they're not glossy like you might want for a photo.
Even though I'm sure someone has created a laser-printed photo exhibition to make an artistic point, photographers (and galleries, and museums) still exist–both hobbyists and professionals.
Aren't ultra-fine particles still a potential health issue with laser printers? Especially in home office or domestic use, where they typically aren't placed in a separate printer room?
I think the biggest exposure would come from handling/replacing the toner cartridges. Make sure that you keep them closed and don't shake them around (e.g. to distribute the toner within).
I think they're also not great for releasing gases and certainly my one does have a chemical smell when printing, so I just make sure that I'm in a different room for doing a large print (it helps that the printer is network connected).
Less than it used to be, but yes. Though it applies to printing and maintenance, and the whole point of buying a laser printer for home is that it can sit still for months at a time.
You know, my biggest problem is not the price per se. I have an inkjet, and use it maybe twice a year. But every time when I use it successfully, it is extremely convenient to be able to print at home. So convenient, that I wouldn't even mind the price.
What I mind is, that because I use it so rarely, that damn expensive cartridge dries up every 2 or so years, after printing maybe like 30 pages. That's what kills me. That's one thing that it's more expensive than gold, but it has awful quality.
"Funny" thing is, I used to have a Xerox laser printer years ago. The toner dried stopped working in it also if it wasn't used for months. The main difference was that the toner cost 3 or 4 times the price of an inkjet cartridge.
Yes. I have realized this when I wrote the comment, and tried to use the "stopped working" instead. But in my infinite wisdom I found it appropriate not to delete completely the original "dried out" words before posting.
Academia can be criticized as unsustainable as the OP does because the number of graduate students exceeds the number of secure employment positions available after one defends one’s dissertation or does a postdoc. However, the American model of PhD students being impoverished while studying isn’t the only one. In several European countries, the norm is for PhD students to be university employees under contract that receive a pretty standard middle-class salary. In various other countries, decent middle-class funding may have to come from outside the university, but it’s a semi-automatic process for anyone whose research plan was solid enough to get accepted as a PhD student in the first place.
Dude, I went through the European PhD system and it's not as glamorous as you depict it. First of all, you forgot to mention that the norm is to give contracts of 50% to 75% FTE. Secondly the hours worked and the vacation time is a complete forgery that you are basically forced to sign. Although the contract is nice on paper, in practice the norms and expectations are different. Thirdly, unlike in the US, in Europe you often don't have a graduate school (although it is a thing) so you are in a very vulnerable situation where you invest 3 to 5 years of the best years of your life and during those years your graduation is completely at the mercy of that supervisor.
There is no “European PhD system” in terms of funding, or the duties expected of a PhD student other than the production of the dissertation. Different countries around the world do it differently, and that is true even within Europe.
> the American model of PhD students being impoverished while studying
This might be true in some cases, but I suspect that ultimately it's only the wealthy who can pursue these higher degrees. Yes, the pay might be low but that doesn't mean they are overall impoverished.
Put another way, the cost of education is one thing, but being able to afford the process might be a higher bar, for some, or more.
