“You are a printer we are all printers”
From Nilay Patel, a recommendation for the best printer of 2023:
Here’s the best printer in 2023: the Brother laser printer that everyone has. Stop thinking about it and just buy one. It will be fine!
The Brother whatever-it-is will print return labels for online shopping, never run out of toner, and generally be a printer instead of the physical instantiation of a business model. […]
I am telling you to just buy whatever Brother laser printer is on sale and never think about printers again.
Patel did the same in 2024 and 2025 – you should check them all out if you want to smile, because they’re genuinely funny, as are some of the comments:
I’ve been using one of these for 6 years. The low toner indicator came on about 7 months ago. I bought new toner.
Reader, I haven’t replaced anything. It still prints fine, the new toner is still sitting on a shelf somewhere.
Least frustrating printer I’ve ever owned. Would buy again.
I’m sharing these on this ostensibly software-related blog not only because printer enshittification happens primarily via software. I wanted to share it also because this feels very similar to me to the post about TextEdit – a simple and deserved desire to own technology that works without any strange machinations, forced updates, and stress.