“Third party ink” existing as a phrase is the problem.
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Brother was the last decent printer company, wasn't it?
Maybe Lexmark? OKI? I vaguely recall there was 1 other not-evil printer company.left.
Otherwise, I've heard good things about clay tablets.
This sounds accurate based on the user reports. They're not bricking anything, they just make you do manual registration if you use third party toner.
I have a black and white brother laser printer that had 3rd party toner that worked fine for years, it was even a two pack of toner. Then I installed a firmware update and immediately it threw an error stating trouble with the toner and refused to print. Tried the unopened 2nd toner, same error. Looked and searched all over online and could not find the previous firmware to try a roll back.
I then purchased a new two pack of 3rd party toner from a different brand and it worked just fine. My guess is with each new firmware they also have a set of chips to block (each toner has a chip on it) that they bundle into to update.
I'll never install another firmware update for that printer now.
I would consider what they did as bricking my toner.
....they just make you do manual registration if you use third party toner
Man, if only we had a word for disabling critical features in this way.
If there is one, it's not "bricking", because it still functions as a printer.
Upvoted for understanding the concept of words having already established definitions
It's a very mutable word due to it's metaphorical nature. It's certainly not set in stone.