Look up ‘Hell’s Angels’ by Hunter Thompson. He has a chapter on the economics of being a biker/hippie/artist in the early 1970s.
A biker could work six months as a Union stevedore and save up enough to spend two years on the road. A part time waitress could support herself and her musician boyfriend.
I think that’s part of the point. The system doesn’t want the majority to be able to say no to a job because they were able to save easily and can take time off whenever they feel. On top of the things mentioned here like food and insurance costs there are also other things now like being certified in a field or needing to continue education or paying for permits every year that seem way to calculated in cost which is just another way of keeping you from getting to far ahead.
My family does ok, but we were still cutting it close a few years ago. Today we are looking at new jobs that we hopefully can get and pay more because ours stopped giving raises and inflation has us stuck living paycheck to paycheck.
I wish I could take more than a few weeks off a year to do what I actually enjoy doing for once. 1 of those weeks is a cheap vacation and the other is just spent getting things done because work takes up most of our time. It’s stressful and tiring and the longer it goes on the more depressing it becomes.
Another thing to consider. Working folks used to be able to afford really nice things. In 1960, a Rolls Royce was about $20,000 and a Jaguar was about $6,000. A ringside ticket to the first Ali/Fraiser fight was $200. They want peasants scrambling for crumbs, not peers
Their current philosophy is an incredibly shortsighted mistake. You make money by having a robust consumer class with plenty of disposable income to spend on things they like. If most people are barely affording essentials, there’s way less variety in where money ends up. If I’m the executive of Samsung, I want to publicly support better pay and higher taxes, because it means more people can buy my TVs and phones.
I struggle to describe the situation because it actually goes against capitalism. The rich are pursuing the option that gives them less profit and hurts the free market.
We’ve gone so far off the rails in terms of the economy that it boggles the mind.
I was brought with the idea that the old Tsarist system of a few great land owners; a small middle class of minor merchants, tradesmen, white collar civil servants; and a sea of serfs, was always going to be unstable. That’s the idea the Right wants for all of us.
Till there be property there can be no government, the very end of which is to secure wealth, and to defend the rich from the poor. In this age of shepherds, if one man possessed 500 oxen, and another had none at all, unless there were some government to secure them to him, he would not be allowed to possess them.”
Adam Smith, “ Lectures on Jurisprudence” 1766
All states are unstable, because their function is to secure the wealth of the many in the hands of the few.
I think you’re missing it because you’re still thinking in a national frame. Capitalists do not. If US workers can’t afford their products, they’ll just sell to Chinese workers. That’s part of why they’re so desperate to get into that market. Capitalism always requires expanding markets. It’s why the web is going through enshittification, also.
There is no nation for a capitalist, they may play at patriotism when it suits their interests, but in reality they will go wherever they can to make as much as they can. If that stops being here, they’ll go elsewhere.
I’m sorry but they don’t actually want you to have money. They want you to have credit. Lots and lots of credit if possible. Because then they win twice. Once in the purchases and second in the interest.
True, but that still requires people to have enough disposable income that they’re freely buying things. To nail them on interest you want them to spend more than they earn, agreed, but it’s all a balance. Go too far, and they’ll pull back on spending, and you lose out doubly.
The mistake you’re making is thinking that long-term effects are a concern in capitalism. They aren’t. The point is for the people at the top to make as much money as possible in as short a time as possible, keep milking the corpse until it rots, then fuck off with your money.
And at the time the USA was 40-50% of the total wealth of the planet. Things were better for Americans then because most of Europe’s manufacturing and industry was devastated after WWII and took decades to return.
Wealth inequality was much lower in the US after the war: …pse.ens.fr/…/Piketty2014FiguresTables.pdfEurope building back should mean the total pie is bigger. The real problem is that the wealthy parasites are sucking up more and more of a proportion that pie.
It’s mostly that we could afford to argue for higher wages because no one else could make that widget or machine.
Europe rebuilding meant Europeans could buy a toaster, car, tv etc that was local whereas before they HAD to buy from America. Shifting the business away meant America had less money to go around
I also suspect it’s an old money vs Nouveau Riche taking over society thing too but Im pulling that entirely from my ass.
The distribution of that pie is also being skewed. Technology has brought prices slightly down (relative to income) for a lot of things that we buy, meaning that we get better prices and more variety on things like food, clothes, travel, and obviously electronics, but a couple of unavoidable things like housing prices and college tuition have exploded so dramatically that it totally overshadows the modest gains that we get. Both are things that only need to be paid for once, so anyone that went to school and bought a house before prices exploded now gets to enjoy cheap housing and cheap commodities, while anyone unlucky enough to come after is just screwed. I think that’s part of why older generations are so unsupportive of how much of a struggle it is for millenials and gen Z, the economy has gone to crap, but so far its only really hit the young
I think that’s part of why older generations are so unsupportive of how much of a struggle it is for millenials and gen Z, the economy has gone to crap, but so far its only really hit the young
Most of us older Generations though have kids of our own, and so we see how today’s life affects them, and the fact that we usually have to help them out because they have it much harder than we did at their age, so we’re aware of the situation.
What it comes down to is a human nature type of thing, where some people think “I’ve got mine and I don’t care about anyone else”, and that transcends physical age.
Yeah, it certainly isn’t everyone in the older generations, no group is ever a monolith. I was generalizing the general sentiment that I’ve seen, but I’m also in an ultra-conservative area that tends to be very “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, so my perspective is probably skewed too.
I was generalizing the general sentiment that I’ve seen
Fair enough, and I thank you for the clarification.
The only reason I replied was because comments like these tend to really bother me, because as I get older, I find I become the recipient of ageism more and more, which is a form of prejudice.
I definitely do agree though that older generations have certain opinions and ways of thinking that they can be set into, but that doesn’t mean they can’t rise above that.
Just slapping the “Boomer” or “Neckbeard” label on everything and moving on feeling victorious is never a good way of solving any society problems.
And on a personal note, as a Gen-Xer constantly being called a Boomer, it reminds me of that line in the Monty Python movie where Death comes to a dinner party and picks up all these people who just died to take them away because of some bad food that was served. Theres one guy in the group being taken away by Death, and he says “hey I didn’t even eat the salmon mousse”.
Hmm… I knew a Hell’s Angel when I was younger and he certainly didn’t work a union job. He was essentially a gangster, who made bundles of money doing illegal things.
He was a Hell’s Angel in the 70’s and 80’s, so it was during the same time period that the book was written about.the Hell’s Angels have always been a criminal organization, despite trying to paint themselves as a simple motorcycle club.
Yes, but they’re not called Hell’s Angels. There are still bikers who aren’t in the Hell’s Angels. I’m replying to someone who specifically said “Hell’s Angels”. If you’re a biker that isn’t a Hell’s Angel and you call yourself one, you’re going to have a real bad time.
A biker could work six months as a Union stevedore and save up enough to spend two years on the road. A part time waitress could support herself and her musician boyfriend.
They don’t drug test on SNAP Benifits, because everytime the GOP tries to pass a bill to do so, the ways and means committee reminds them that it would more than double the cost of the SNAP program to pay for even the most lenient drug testing. But they do try every few years.
They would rather pay more than the entire program already, to get those filty poors off assistance.
Also some fun facts, most SNAP recipients are children, most are white, and most make enough money to no longer need assistance in under 5 years, at which point they are back to paying taxes. Which pays for SNAP. Making the system quite self- sustaining. It’s cost is minuscule to tax payers, and yet it’s a constant wedge issue, why? Because of America’s greatest fear, that if we do something that benefits people, we might accidently help the wrong people. People who aren’t even white.
They tried it in florida and 96% of recipients passed…but not before the state spent $400,000 in taxpayer money with the drug testing company…that had the governors wife on its board of directors
not before the state spent $400,000 in taxpayer money with the drug testing company
Honestly, given Rick Scott’s reputation for bilking Medicare into the billions, this is one of the smallest tier scams I’ve heard of in Florida. They didn’t even take the state for a full seven figures (unless, of course, the number is being drastically under-reported which is always a possibility).
It stopped at $400,000 because the state Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional and put a stop to the whole operation. He’d have made tens of millions if not more otherwise.
Because of America’s greatest fear, that if we do something that benefits people, we might accidently help the wrong people. People who aren’t even white.
You just explained how unions fell apart, pensions stopped being a thing, schools lost funding, college education went up, and social safety nets disappeared.
I constantly come back to this quote from LBJ
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
The IRS ain’t sending an agent to you specifically unless you’ve done something well beyond the pale of what can just be excused as a mix-up or simple misunderstanding
You gotta be in a whole different kinda space for the tax man to be someone you gotta personally interact with.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
Fun fact, every capitalist dreams of taxing others for no reason, only they call it rent or subscription and won’t always deliver their end of the bargain.
There are so many times a libertarian has told me their libertarian way of doing things and I say to them that it sounds to me like they’re talking about taxation with extra steps and bigger threats and it’s always “no no no, but see you don’t have to pay for the fire department to come to your house, but no one will insure your house and it will be worthless…”
Well, sure hope you haven’t done a lot of existing in public lately, because damn near everything out there has my tax dollars in it, and I’d appreciate you not abusing them. Get off my roads, get out of my schools, get out of my parks, unless you’re paying into them.
Also, keep an eye out for the nice men knocking at the door. They’ll be there soon with some questions, I’m sure.
“Dear America: You are waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3 while 1/3 watches.”—Incorrectly attributed to Werner Herzog but just some random person on the internet it seems.
Still the quote makes sense even without the appeal to authority
Nah. America had Nazis in the 30s too. We’re immune to the most rabid varieties of fascism and authoritarianism because they don’t produce all the cool products Americans demand.
Americans might be plagued with racism and bigotry, but we’re way too lazy and invested in our own lives for a coup. Literally our bread and circuses are way too good.
It seems pretty common for travelers to lament the lack of good bread like at home. Bread basically a living organism that is ultra local. Good bread like at home really only exists at home. Local water, temperature, humidity, and other environmental factors seem to play a big part.
Ask anyone from New York or New Jersey about getting a good pizza or bagel in another state. It doesn’t matter who makes it or if they’re using the exact same recipe, perfect bread can evidently not be replicated outside the region. There is even a bagel company in south Florida, catering to snowbirds turned transplants, that claims to use water from that region to make their bagels.
I’m in VA and I have a couple of spots that sell their food “from NY water shipped daily.” Idk it is bomb ass bagels and pizza though. I’m not sure what the water does but I enjoy eating it.
It’s not as delicate a matter as you make it out to be. I was just looking for a kind that isn’t mushy like toast or full of sugar like a bagle. If classic sourdough or whole grain with an actual crust exist in the US it’s not trivial to find for foreign visitors.
Whole Foods has a great bakery. It was a loaf I bought there that inspired me to start making sourdough. Locally, we have “Cuban bread” that I’m pretty sure is really Tampa bread, if you get it at the right bakeries it’s great. Supermarket bread is mostly nonsense, is that not true elsewhere?
Yeah, good food isn’t trivial to find when you travel. I’m empathetic to that frustration. But judging all bread based on the cheapest abundant and easy to find bread a foreigner can find without any apparent effort seems like a mistake to me. I certainly wouldn’t judge all Italian food by what I found in my hotel in Venice. I wouldn’t judge NY bagels by what I found during my layover at La Guardia. And I wouldn’t judge an entire countries bread based on what I found in the grocery store.
It’s selection bias. Folks who resist get stomped on. The folks that remain are increasingly docile.
Repeat this process over and over again - from the Palmer Raids to the Blacklists to the crushing of the Civil Rights / Antiwar movements to the Drug Wars and Terror Wars - until your culture is properly domesticated and you can do whatever you want to them.
I think the anti-war movement - more specifically specifically the anti-draft movement - caused a lot of unintended damage. By effectively ending the draft it removed many young people’s connection to world events.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars would have been met with a lot more resistance. If all those years of stop-losses and quadruple deployments had instead been years of drafting young people, a lot more people would have stood up the the Bush administration. That would have gotten a generation politically active and would have prevented a lot of what’s happening today.
By effectively ending the draft it removed many young people’s connection to world events.
I don’t buy that theory, as the broader global economic forces were a bigger influence on GenX / Millennial youth than any particular US military hot zone. And I loathe to think how the Bush/Obama admins would have responded to Afghanistan/Iraq if they thought they had unlimited free conscripts to throw at the problem forever, rather than a depleted reserve of voluntary enlistees and national guard troops to draw from.
If all those years of stop-losses and quadruple deployments had instead been years of drafting young people, a lot more people would have stood up the the Bush administration.
I don’t think Bush could have been meaningfully less popular with youth voters by 2004. His approval rating was already under 40% in the 18-24 demographic. Young people were regularly in the streets in protest all through 03-04. I was in college at the time, and there were parades of protesters running through the quad at the start of every term. But it was the Boomer voters who dictated the direction of the country, and their hatred of brown skinned foreigners was matched only slightly by their disgust towards Millennials.
The groundswell of opposition to Bush kept piling up until it fully materialized in the 2009 Dem super majority, but then… Obama didn’t get us out of Iraq. Hell, the reason he beat Hillary was because he came out as staunchly against Iraq while she waffled. The antiwar movement was widespread in 2008 and continued to truck on through 2012. But it wasn’t voluntary enlistment that strangled the war. It was a big wave of ostensibly antiwar Democrats taking office and then not ending it.
Maybe mini M&Ms tubes are bigger than I remember (it’s been years since I’ve seen one), but I’m pretty sure you couldn’t jam a dick into one of them either. Not without injury, anyway.
There are hidden hallways behind the shops, if you can get back there the gorilla won’t ever find you. Hell go to the elevator or a bathroom and just chill for a day.
The whole damn system exists to place the burden of a living wage on the customer while the company paying peanuts can claim no wrongdoing. And the really sad part is: it has worked.
Edit: and there are many, many businesses that wouldn’t be in business if they actually had to pay competitive wages on their own. The invisible hand can fix nothing if tipping culture says to throw more and more arbitrary amounts of money at people to subsidize their wages yourself. At some point (I’d argue we’re past it already), the band-aid needs to get ripped off. Only then will we see self-correction. The almost immediate loss of many businesses will likely trigger other actions. It’s already a no-win scenario.
Yes, but one way is on the company first and one isn’t. Would prices go up if these places were paying living wages? Most likely. Many businesses would be insolvent because their business model was simply never designed to pay a living wage to employees. Others could remain solvent, but probably not if they continue to take so much off the top at higher positions.
And that’s exactly it: the market never self-corrects if we throw arbitrary money in excess of listed prices to solve was is ultimately an issue of business solvency and ethics. There is no economic theory that would support such an idea in any industry, but here we are.
The sheer number of businesses out of the space might even drive down rents. That’s the kind of thing I mean by “other actions”. But things cannot continue as they are.
None of this is even to mention the sheer number of people in the service industry who are also on government assistance programs. They have to be – none of the blame is on them. But my tax dollars go to that, plus I am expected to pay extra to subsidize their wages with tips. I effectively subsidize them twice while someone reaps the rewards on their yacht. All I’m saying is the yacht people should be taking the risks first. That’s part of being a business owner.
I don’t think a lot of Lemmy understands it doesn’t matter how you are subsidizing the wages, you’re doing it regardless. Like this clown who thinks food will be cheaper if more cash goes through the owner to the waiter instead of straight to the waiter. Regardless of system the customer is paying for everything, not the owner, unless of course his business is failing. Imagine the entitlement required to desire everyone change their model to make things cheaper for you, at a business that is completely a luxury. You could simply learn to cook instead of whining about tipping.
This is not true. I’ve visited the USA multiple times and I’ve gotten tipping wrong every time.
the market isn’t gonna correct if it goes away because you’ll still be paying the exact same amount.
This is also not really true. You look at a menu in Australia and the price you see is the exact amount you pay. $20 lunch is $20 on the bill. No added tips or taxes or anything.
For the customer, this system is better.
Saying that same lunch in the USA would ‘have been $14 on the menu in the USA’ would not match my experience. In fact, prices for most things were in the same rough ballpark once the exchange rate was factored in.
Caveat: my last visit was 10 years ago. My experience may be out of date. 15% was considered a normal tip, then.
I’m sorry you’re a moron, and I don’t take financial advice from people who can’t figure out something as simple as tipping protocol. And quit lying, food is definitely cheaper on average in the states, and greater quantity too.
The food is pumped with filler trash, so the quantity is definitely there, but the prices aren’t as cheap as you think, especially for what you’re getting.
Are you a foreign to the USA trucker who spent a good portion of the last 7 years south of the border? No? I am, and know exactly what I’m talking about, intimately familiar with farm/ranch end prices and also wholesale prices as I now own a restaurant. I’m the rare person who’s worked at every end of the food industry and the middle too, as well as being a frequent customer in 22 states and 8 provinces. and very familiar with currency conversions from all the commodity rates, shipping and ordering. Meanwhile you are some fucking guy saying “nuh uh” who likely needs to go to wikipedia to try describe current American farm subsidy policy.
Oh look, an Aussie that needs you know that. Yes yes, everything is better there, it has to be, why else would y’all spend so much time trying to convince everyone of it.
Tipping does still suck though, and the way it is in many states of the US, slow business literally means employees get paid less, which is pretty fucked.
Australia certainly isn’t perfect, and don’t let anyone tell you how great Medicare is here because it’s not what it uses to be and slowly but surely slipping into private health insurance hell due to its languishing, but heck, defensive much mate?
I am glad that I don’t have to deal with tipping. Tipping is trash and seemingly many Americans agree it’s trash.
Not defensive, I really don’t care for Australians, they’ve a way of conducting themselves that I find very fucking irritating. New Zealanders i can get along with.
Tipping is good bc you van pay the employee directly. What needs to change is that tips need to be mandatory and when tips fall short of a living wage the business must pay pay to make up.
A business is free to offer mandatory tipping and they do have to make up the difference if its not the minimum wage. The minimum wage could be higher of course.
What difference is there to you, then, between “employer pays a reasonable living wage to their employees but raises the prices of the food a bit to accommodate” and “employer pays poverty wages, forcing the customers to pay their employees for them and forcing tax payers to pay up when people earning poverty wages inevitably rely on government programs to simply survive?” If tipping is mandatory, the only people that benefit is the employer since they can simply double dip - spend less money on payroll AND force the customer to make up for your lack of willingness to pay competitive wages. Yes, under current law, employers are supposed to make the difference if tips can’t cover at least minimum wage, but that’s not enforced nearly as much as it should be, which puts the onus on the workers being exploited in the first place, and even then minimum wage in this country is embarrassingly unfit for supporting anybody.
The more important question to ask is “why am I expected to pay an employee when the money I already give to a business should cover wages in the first place?”
I’m a tipped employee for my day job. I make a decent base pay, but the tips make up for that in spades during busy seasons. I’ve bought my current car with tip money. Despite this, I fully support getting rid of tips if it meant my livelihood wouldn’t be a gamble depending on factors outside my control, and especially if it meant fewer people had to rely on government assistance and could better provide a livelihood for themselves.
I agree wholeheartedly! Let’s make tipping mandatory. In fact, let’s add it on to the price of your bill automatically. Better still, let’s just add it onto the menu price. Oh hey, we’ve come full circle.
The first statement is actully true though, there is more sugar in milk chocolate than chocolate. the others are all obviously incorrect, there is more pickles, more chicken etc.
It’s not true. You can like a product without liking all of its ingredients in their more pure form. I like bread, but I’m not a fan of choking down handfuls of flour or yeast.
In cooking, the result is greater than the sum of its parts, and ingredients strength matters more than raw volume. Here’s a more direct example. You probably don’t enjoy chugging raw vanilla extract, and vanilla extract is highly concentrated in a small volume. Just because you don’t like the concentrated form and it makes up a small volume in recipes, doesn’t mean you don’t like vanilla.
i don’t understand your point. i simply pointed out that there is indeed more sugar in milk choc than chocolate. i don’t think anyone can deny sugar isn’t the first and most dominating flavour of milk chocolate. sure it hasa choc after-taste. The other examples were silly because they all referenced things that didn’t have the dominant flavour or indeed the dominant ingredient they were attempting to mock.
Why you and apparently 19 others are butt hurt about the fact milk choc is mostly sugar both ingredient wise and flavour wise is frankly bizarre to me.
You can also refute it by inverting the logic. If you like milk chocolate but don’t like eating a bowl full of sugar, you like chocolate more than sugar. Curious what the name for that would be.
Which makes “debate” look a bit like a dog’s breakfast. But we live in a society, nobody said science is perfect and, ultimately, personal judgment trumps everything.
The earlier dialogues of Plato (424–348 BCE), relating the discourses of Socrates, raised the use of reductio arguments to a formal dialectical method (elenchus), also called the Socratic method.
Well you’re entitled to your option … but it’s a dumb one and you should feel bad about having it. Also, I’m going to needless drag unrelated politics into this.
You weren’t replying to my comment, which is nowhere near this chain of comments, but I think you were targeting me. Your satire is too close to being serious. I declare that you’re an idiot. Fight me now.
As a supporter of the other political party (since there are only two, internet equals Murica), I ignore your arguments and attack you with an ad hominem
I love the fact that brother basically does no marketing as far as I know. They just end up shining like a diamond because they make a generally good product and everyone else around them makes absolute trash.
I only bought a brother printer because of recommendations from reddit. It’s so much better than my old hp inkjet that randomly started asking me to sign in in order to print or scan.
Why tf would I need to sign in to my HP account online in order to print in my own fucking home.
A printing kiosk or photo shop. They will be so much better quality. If you buy an inkjet and only use it once or twice a month the heads get clogged and you waste loads of ink cleaning it.
What the other guy said. Unless you genuinely need high-quality color photos on a daily or weekly basis, you do not need an inkjet printer. Go to a print shop, get it done right and it’ll be much less headache – but the vast majority of the time I’ve needed something printed, it has been swathes of black text on white paper. And a plain B&W laser printer does that perfectly, with no bullshit. I just recommend Brother because they’re a decent company.
They are but the pricing is ok, £2 a month for 50 pages. The higher end pricing seems to be around 3p per page which is what they price their toners at. They even allow you to rollover a decent amount of print credit. Now, if they had these printers in shops around the country and I could use the credit for those instead of just in my own home, I think it would be a really cool service. The local corner shop charges £2 to print a single sheet of A4 and then 50p per page after that.
Yes, I have a b&w brother laser/scanner than is 6 to 7 years old and it goes on without any issues (except networking BS at times, but that is likely my problem)
Yep, totally. In the vile shit that printer business is, Brother seems to be the only brand to not be straight-up anti consumer. I have a Brother all-in-one machine at work, it works out of the box on all devices, scans with whatever app, doesn’t push some bullshit custom nagware every time you print and, best of all, ACCEPTS NONAME TONERS without saying a single word of complain. It doesn’t refuse to print, doesn’t even mention that you may get worse quality prints (yeah right). It just prints and we don’t have to think about it and I really appreciate it.
I shit you not I have a brother laser printer that I don’t even know how old it is. My dad pulled out of our basement and cleaned it up and got it running so I could use it in college back in 2009. Skip ahead to 2016 and I’m using it for the table cards at our wedding. It’s 2023 and I still use it from time to time. I’ve only changed the toner once and cleaned it a handful of times, but that sums up the entirety of the maintenance while I’ve had it. I have to plug it into my computer via USB which isn’t so bad. But they don’t have a driver available for OSX anymore so it’s now a PC only printer. I’ll keep using it until it stops working or isn’t compatible with any computer anymore.
Regarding the driver, I had the same problem with running my 2005 HP LaserJet 1020 on OSX, but got it running with a built-in driver for a printer in the same build group (LJ 1022, maybe?) so keep that in mind if you haven’t already tried it. I know your printer is Brother and not HP, but there may be a native Brother driver already in the OSX build you can use.
You may lose some advanced driver functionality doing this but most printing doesn’t require it anyway. If it works you’ll be able to print just fine. You can also search your model number and see what Mac printer driver hacks others have come up with, since this was not an uncommon thing with Macs back when I had to do it a few years ago.
But yeah, on the sad day my old HP LJ non-networked non-enshittified printer carks it, I’ll be getting a Brother. No way I give HP my business now.
What about Epson? Specifically I’m considering one of the ecotank ones because I need to print stuff for board games like info sheets and so on that need rich colours and designs. Might even look into A3+ printers.
Are those useful? The per-page cost looks crazy low for an inkjet.
No joke. I had HP and I knew Brother was painfree experience and when I was buying said HP, I completely forgot about them. Few years forward my old HP avoided destruction by sheer luck and my brother’s will to try and tame it. These days I have Brother laser printer and it takes whatever you throw at it without complaints. It’s so obedient am having issues accepting such behavior.
I’ve moved to Brother from HP. Disappointed by the support for Linux. While the driver exists, a lot of them aren’t packaged. HP does a better job at that.
But never EVER buy a brother inkjet, its the same as all the other brands. You cannot insert bootleg ink anymore. My printer didnt accept any ink apart from the oem.
To clarify a misconception, the pregnancy test was not running Doom. The guy who did it connected the test's display to an external device which was actually running the game, it was just displayed on the pregnancy test's screen.
The device was not running the game either, just a video of it - but people have connected this (very standard) display to Raspberry Pis and even any Linux machine over HDMI.
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