No ink, no scan: Canon USA printers hit with class-action suit | Hacker News Reader

No ink, no scan: Canon USA printers hit with class-action suit

zdnet.com

69 pointsCrankyBear10 comments

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28888214 (2 days ago)

Thanks! Macroexpanded:

Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28888214 - Oct 2021 (462 comments)

I feel like inkjet printers have some of the most anti-consumer practices aside from maybe payday loans.

It almost feels like lawyers don't want to do anything related to technology and ones that do have had some spectacular failures, setting really bad precedent.

Although I would mention that I'd expect the litigious class to be some of the most highly impacted by the bizarre pricing practices of printers. Physical copies of legal documents are still often used for review and agreement even if those documents include 150 pages of boilerplate term definitions.

Lawyers are smart enough not to trust computers.

Do lawyers that print off dozens of sheets per day even use inkjet printers? Most of the scummy behavior revolve around inkjet printers, and I bet most would have switched to laser because of its cost-effectiveness. This seems to be confirmed in my limited sample of office printers. I've yet seen an office that used an inkjet printer.

Also, speed. Can you imagine how long it would take to print out 150 pages on an inkjet?

They certainly wouldn't use cheapest consumer-grade injets. At least not after third time...

Some inkjets aren't too horrible in heavy use even competing with lasers.

> their all-in-one printers do require ink to scan, and they've been doing it since at least 2016

Oh they've been doing that for over a decade. People just sort of... put up with it.

Consider that as more and more materials come online and smaller hand held platforms (tablets, phones) serve as convenient references, people print less and less. If printing is a commonplace occurrence, people would rarely run into the ink/scan tie. As they print less, they run into it more.

You can also assume that print companies have been concerned about a decline in print relevance and the impact it would have on their business. So putting in place these kinds of policies may have been a response to this.

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