Are you stating your last two sentences as the result of researching these issues?

Because as a layperson, I would not have thought a company could get a patent on clicking a button to purchase an item online.

>Are you stating your last two sentences as the result of researching these issues?

Do you really believe "researching" is needed?

Like, in every other domain and product category, a company can slap a faster processor and more RAM to the next iteration - as they do -, but this is somehow prevented in printers by patents?

I'd say the extraordinary claim that needs extraordinary evidence is not mine...

When you read HN comments it helps to preface them with “I feel like...”

I upvoted you out of greyness because I feel like that is generally correct here. :)

Now that I've helped you out of the quicksand, let's do battle:

"[I feel like] it's not like there's some patent issue for using USB or wifi in your printer over whatever interface used in 2000 compared."

I could certainly try harder to finesse it, but I don't see any sensible place to insert a "YMMV" into any part of that sentence.

Emphasis on "feeling", because there's seldom any thinking going on.

Or at least, you feel like there isn't

>> as suffering from constant paper jams and other mechanical malfunctions.

> All of that, including the interfacing are not related to patents.

This seems like a pretty strong statement, can you elaborate as to why solving paper jams wouldn't involve patented IP ?

The paper jam might be. The rest (speed of processor, amount of ram, interface used) certainly aren't.

I feel like you may not be familiar with how patents work in the US: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20040137855A1/en. This is a patent for "Wireless Mobile Printing", which is more specific than just "Wireless Printing". Both of these concepts are, arguably, obvious combinations of existing technology.