Nobody likes being scammed even if it's just for $2.
This isn't about not wanting to be scammed, this is about people wanting something for nothing.
They only tend to be a bit picky about the WiFi networks, so better to use with a cable.
Vigorously shaking the cartridge might also help sometimes.
And regarding starter cartridges, you might need a reset gear: https://cartridgeamerica.com/ctg/brother-toner-chips.php
One thing I did notice, though, is that it will start complaining and bugging you about replacing the toner before it actually runs out. There's a well-known way to reset that check, though, allowing you to print until it actually runs out.
This is all true, but it seems lasers have had their day for the occasional use printer. We have an Epson EcoTank, and all manufacturers have equivalents. The hardware has been absolutely flawless - 12k pages of ink in the box, not a single jam after 10k pages, ink is something like $20 for 10k pages and child could refill the think without making a mess. They make you pay for the privilege of not nickel and diming you after buying it by charging at least $200 more upfront, but I'd take that any day.
But, for Epson at least, the simplicity of pcl6 / ps isn't there. You have to use their drivers, which often only exist for Windows. That shouldn't happen because they support "driverless printing", which is really just another printing format that supplants pcl6 / ps. They all support "driverless printing" because they need to check the "print from mobile" tick box, and they can only get it by supporting this new format.
In theory, this should be great for open source because this new format started life as the internal format used by CUPS called "CUPS Raster" [0]. It was then taken up by some mob called the "Printer Working Group", made more device independent, and renamed "PWG Raster", which CUPS supports. In practice, so far, I've never had the joy of seeing a driverless printer to work with CUPS - despite the fact that phones do work with the printers. It needs more time in the oven, I guess.
Mindboggling. Here we are, after 30 years of trying to come up with standard way of doing the apparently simple job of telling a printer how to put ink on paper, and we still need more time in the oven. Unbelievable.
Even on Linux?
Ironically, my windows desktop won’t print to it though. It just reports an opaque error sending to the print queue with no diagnostic information. No idea if it’s a windows problem or a printer problem, because I just use my linux laptop to print with no issues, so I haven’t bothered to resolve the windows printing issues.
And before that, 3rd party ink and ribbons, for dot matrix printers.
I agree that the consumer print business has gone down a strange path, bit this sort stuff has been going on forever.
EG, printers purposefully wasting ink, I recall 20+ years ago.
No malware, no adware, no funky drivers; just colored, WiFi, LP-protocol, multi-tray PCL and PS support.
Best thing since sliced bread.