Use a print shop/library, hit up a friend/coworker, or figure out a different way of getting the immediate task done without printing. Basically anything that isn't walking into a store and dropping a few hundred dollars on a fully-fledged simulation of a capital asset, that will likely put you in the same exact urgent situation within a year or two.

I totally understand the impulse to spend a bit of money and feel that you're solving a problem now and for the future. But these companies have evolved their offerings to fully take advantage of this behavior, and the only way to protect yourself is to take a step back and act deliberately.

Even if you manage to postpone buying a printer, needing one can still be inevitable. You asked "why would you buy a defective-by-design piece of junk", the answer is buying anything else seems to be impossible. Holding on to whatever you bought 10-20 years ago does not solve the problem going forward.

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Do you mean Brother? They're also evil now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34695261