Legislation is Way overdue for this nonsense. My home security cameras are all being disabled and unable to record videos as they have for years because the company (fuck you Arlo) has decided they want users to just suddenly start paying subscription fees. If we let them every company will eventually move to this model. Even staunch capitalists need to recognize that this is an issue begging for legislation. Stop this insanity.
Legislation is the only way to reign it in, of course they’d scream “but prices would go up!”. I’d rather pay a few bucks more up front to not pay 10x as much in ink later. The whole subscription model is awful too. They are turning our whole lives into rentals.
I’m sure if they did legislate it they’d do everything they could to try to work around it.
I’m in the same boat as you with the Arlo cameras. I’ve got the Pro (4030) cameras. I read an article that said they kinda walked that decision back. They are going to continue the 7 day free cloud storage, so after the EOL date, which was July 1st, they’ll continue to offer security updates for a year, but after that our cameras will still work but not receive updates. I’ll definitely be looking for other options, but at least they’ll still work. If anyone knows a good kit that lets you host the videos yourself I’d be interested in hearing about it.
I just purchased my first Lorex camera. Won’t likely have time to tinker with it for another week or so, but can let you know if it seems good. Hoping to switch to their entire local infrastructure.
It needs to be eWaste prevention law. Perfectly functioning hardware should never become a brick due to license/subscription. Period. I don’t care if your business model is based on it. Fuck you.
My home camera was exactly what prompt me to learn how to reflash IoT devices, and set up a Home Assistant network that’s entierly self-hosted. It’s way easier than I though.
Want to drop some links for where to get started? I only sort of understand what you just said but I like the idea of my own network and it being easier than it seems!
we have allowed corporations to grow too large, thats it. they have successfully abstracted away all human responsibility, ethics, common sense in lieu of profit.
i see only one solution; kill the stock market. its a sickness. its not even real, its all fake arbitrary numbers the rich absolutely control by leveraging their own information before the peons.
tax. every. trade. tax stock ownership.
if your business cant grow by being better at itself, then maybe start a new one.. dont start skimping materials to save costs... dont start leverage vertical integration so you can make an entire suite of terrible products..
fuck when is enough enough.
so, the constant reach for 'growth' and 'profit' is what is killing us. no business are left to organically just be.
It’s also why FOSS and hacking community is so important. It’s exactly so we can fight against something like this, by simply hacking and reflashing our own devices, so we can get rid of all the software-imposed bullshit.
I studied gamedev and always wanted to make games, but I’m really glad that I’ve instead chosen cybersecurity for my first job thanks to a random optional course about pentesting I had in college. It’s a skill that will be more and more important, and I highly recommend to anyone just reading a book or two about hacking, and getting their hands dirty on some IoT hacking labs and writeups as soon as possible.
It’s shenanigans like this that make me never want to buy a Canon or HP product. If I need a high end inkjet for printing photographs, it’s Epson all day. For anything else, I swear by a good used bulletproof Brother.
Brother was good but I’m disappointed by the last units I had. After 4 years of light home usage (one page here and there), they are not picking up paper in the tray. Same for some relatives which bought similar units. Feels like scheduled obsolescence …
If it’s just that, then the rubber on the rollers had probably dried out. I had the same issue with a 10 year old HP inkjet. Some mg chemicals “rubber renue” worked great.
I had this same paper issue! I solved it by using heavier weight paper. I think it’s just wear making parts looser. I think it just sincerely can’t grab the cheap, thin sheets as well as it used to. If I were more mechanically minded, I’d be tempted to get in there and see if there was anything I could adjust. But just using heavier paper solved it, so I haven’t gotten to the “if it doesn’t work, force it; if it breaks, it needed replacing anyway” stage.
Ok this is off topic but… What are y’all printing so much? I print a form once or twice a year and just print at the store across the road or the library for 10ct a page. The printer I had probably cost me 3$ a page because I used it so rarely.
I agree with you, but have you owned a consumer printer? They break so freaking fast. When I had them, I don’t think I’ve ever had a printer last more than 3 years. Granted I haven’t owned a printer in 15 years, but prior to that I swear we had to replace those damn things like clock work every couple of years for some stupid reason.
I read this so often that this is the solution and I hate it. This is definitely not the answer. The majority of people just see a cheap printer and buy it without being informed about the long term costs. If you just stop buying without speaking up, they still get tons of sales of the uninformed and will keep trying to find other ways to get the most money out of them.
My recommendation is to not buy cheap and look into small or medium printer class printers (depending on the volume).
Never the consumer version if possible.
Whenever anyone tells me they’re on the market for a printer, I actively try and push them towards a laser. My Brother wireless laser has worked flawlessly for years, is extremely easy to maintain, and was not much more expensive than an inkjet when I bought it. The fact that the toner doesn’t really go bad like ink, and is an order of magnitude cheaper, makes all the difference. It lasts for a stupid number of pages too (I think I’m on my 2nd or 3rd toner cart in all the years I’ve had the printer). And it’s faster, the toner doesn’t run if the page gets wet, etc etc.
These inkjet companies really prey on less technical consumers not understanding that a) they have another option and b) ink is marked up to be worth more than gold by volume.
My last three printers have been Brother and they have been great. They do still have chipped toner cartridges but I haven’t had any trouble with 3rd party toner. They also work fantastic on Linux.
We need a company like framework, or system76 or a similar consumer friendly company to make us a printer and end all this bullshit. I’m so sick of these assholes.
On top of what everyone else said, if you’re scanning something like a book, holding it upside-down on a scanner bed and pressing it flat will give you a much better scan than holding it open with your hand right-side up so you can get a phone photo of it.
People with essential tremor perhaps? There is ZERO point me trying to scan something with a handheld scanner because it’s a blurred mess every time. Flatbed all the way. Or perhaps a tripod mount for the handheld scanner.
This is ridiculous. When will these companies decide they’ve made enough profits and run their companies in a way people enjoy the product as was probably originally intended. Sorry, wishful thinking there!!
They think they don’t have a choice. I’ve talked to people who use a printer maybe once a year for 3 pages but have convinced themselves they must have a printer in their home ready to go for the one time they’ll maybe need to print something out.
Your local library has a printer you can use. Mine lets me print 10 pages per day for free. I’d rather go to the Library than deal with HP’s bullshit, no question!
Nobody wants to waste time and gas money going to the library to print a few pages. Our library also charges to print. We do about 20-30 pages a month at home and it costs us about $50 year for ink and paper. It’s worth it for the convenience.
To each their own. I’m less than a mile from my library so it’s an easy choice. I’m also not in school and that seems to be the biggest use amongst my friend group.
Add comment