[Yizahi]

Canon 6030 was surprisingly good. It didn't have any driver issues (unlike other Canon printers that dropped support after 2000/XP) it just works on any Windows version, it doesn't need to reset chip in the cartridge to simulate new cartridge. And it worked for 1.5 years in hellish environment and is still going on - in extremely dusty tent (amount of dust that accumulates in an apartment in several months in one day), in plus 30 and in minus 20, in very high humidity. Basically field army conditions. And it continuously prints about 500 pages per week, sometimes up to 1000 per week. Personally I was amazed with its performance, taking into account that it is a budget printer. We just bought several cans of toner to refill manually and changed photo-drum every 2-3 months.

[agumonkey]

Printers are a bit like cars, not enough genericity. It used to be worth it in the 90s when there was innovation but now it's going backward every time. Everything is coupled where it shouldn't. Fat proprietary drivers, bad interfaces physical and software, coupled network links, cheap tricks to ensure regular costs (ink drm etc); bad mechanics (HP printers are more and more noisy)...

It's mostly a social problem, maybe it's useless since the printing industry is a remain of the xerox administrative era. The amount of prints is very low nowadays.

I'm sure there a nice void for a more humane printer kit, cheaper ink, acceptable open drivers, and more creative usage.

[userbinator]

I'm sure there a nice void for a more humane printer kit, cheaper ink, acceptable open drivers, and more creative usage.

Industrial/commercial printers qualify at least for the "cheaper ink" part, and you can actually buy individual parts like printheads, complete with documentation; however, they cost at least an order of magnitude more and tend to have much lower resolutions.

[pjc50]

Sadly, genericity is death for product margins. Profit comes from lockin, like HP's ridiculous cloud ink services.

I don't think there's a market for a more open printer, not at the price you'd have to charge for your small production runs.

[agumonkey]

Understood, maybe it's time for something or someone to put that market at rest so everybody can use their time for better thing, users and companies engineers ?

[Spooky23]

The market took care of that. It's called Brother!

[pjc50]

> put that market at rest

What does that mean?

[agumonkey]

Stop presenting it as a tech/muchprofit product, make it like wires. Also kind of Google webm.

ps: also, and it's a bit off topic, slightly; you said non genericity is how they make profit, maybe (just a thought) it's not the only way. People seems frustrated and disenchanted by printers; it's a cool device if you allow user to take control and not obscure everything in the alleged purpose it's to make it easier. Potential new applications, usages; better ergonomics and repairability, longer lasting things, that's something people would pay for. The trend is around cool device + quick renewal but high freqs are harmful IMO companies should invert this business model.