I still use the same printer I got in 2004. Hp color laser jet 2600n. Highly recommend. It’s large and loud and toner is pricey. But toner is widely available, you can easily get 2,000+ pages out of a toner cart, I’ve generally found it to have native driver support in macOS and Linux at this point, it has an Ethernet jack so you can print over network, etc. the toner is also much more reasonable if you only print black and white, the $$$ is if you change all the toner carts at once.

It does have a toner tracking chip but you can override that in the firmware. they used to actually allow you to do such a thing!! It’s not even like a secret developer menu thing, it’s just an option you can pick although iirc it warns you print quality may suffer. or you can just buy blank chips for a few bucks, it’s just a little plastic tab that you break off and then you slide the old one out and the new one in. But that’s more for if you plan to refill the toner carts which I do not recommend; it’s a messy process where you have to burn/cut a hole in the cart, refill with powder, then seal it with tape. I tried it a few times and it was a huge mess and lead to leaky carts; not worth saving the $50 bucks or whatever

I’m pretty sure in like 2040 my house will be an anachronism of old tech like this. It’s already mostly there with some notable exceptions. If I have to subscribe I won’t buy it; if I buy it and find out I need to subscribe I’ll return it or sell it. I will pay month by month for items that justify a need for ongoing payment (like I pay once a year for Usenet access). But I don’t think I am in the target demo for basically any company lol

[–] dumblederp 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

FWIW I've an $100 brother laser (2140) the same age. The toner cartridges are $20 on eBay. I've bought two or three in the last 20 years.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I last did a TCO analysis of printers brothers came out on top by a big margin.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I've done a few TCO's over the years... Brother is almost always up there...

I've had my current color laserjet for damn near a decade... bought it used/refurbed from them. I just hope brother doesn't try what the others are doing.

[–] UltraBlack 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

black toner is cheap, everything else is expensive as hell. But yes, toner printers are probably your best option for cheap printing.

[–] quixotic120 1 points 1 year ago

Sure but I mean to accentuate the idea that older printers don’t have these stupid drms. Frankly I would prefer something newer that isn’t the size of a mini fridge and sounds like an industrial copier but I’ll take that over a printer that requires persistent WiFi and my debit card to print.

Pretty sad that in 20 years we went from a printer that had a chip that tracked toner use so that you could see how much was left but still easily gave you the option to say “ignore that and keep printing” to printers that arbitrarily create e waste by bricking cartridges because they’re past the assigned page count or expiry date despite having ink/toner left.

[–] agent_flounder 3 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure toner is cheaper than what HP charges for ink.

I had an ancient laserjet for years and HP stopped making toner. Wished I had kept it and used 3rd party toner but I heard about others not having great experiences with that.

That said our old OfficeJet 8600 is still going great and no subscriptions.

How it is legal to charge a subscription for a device like that is beyond me. Need to pass state laws to stop that bullshit I think. That's the only way that might actually be remotely feasible.

[–] sylvain 3 points 1 year ago

Same, except it's an Officejet 6600 from early 2010. I use third party ink cartridges in it. Fuck those expensive "genuine" ink cartridges!

[–] Styxia 2 points 1 year ago

As this year has progressed I’ve become increasingly disillusioned by technology. Shit just stops working, random upgrades, and adverts invading my search results, the list is endless. I have an LG washer and needed to install an app to diagnose the problem. The Wi-Fi chip took multiple attempts to connect, and then the app required countless permissions to anything and everything. My work is making me travel and the hotel doesn’t have a check in desk, alas I need to install and app and upload my photo ID… ffs!!

There was a recent episode of Always Sunny where Denis takes a mental health day. It can’t be more accurate! I am so over being harassed by technology. To some degree I invited it into my life, I’ll own that. But I think I’m slowly becoming a willful Luddite and I’m absolutely fine with that!

[–] IMongoose 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have a 1320n. When I bought toner about 5 years ago and it was $20 for third party, works fine. Every few months I flip it on, print a few pages (sometimes from my phone), and flip it off again. Ezpz.

[–] quixotic120 2 points 1 year ago

Third party toner is usually fine, refilling is where I’ve had issues. Although years ago I did get a super cheap third party toner at micro center that leaked like crazy. I had to return it and clean the whole printer, was a nightmare. But aside from that one incident never had an issue