Why do printers still suck?
It&#x27;s step four.<p><i>Forget about the printer for weeks until I need it again</i><p>Inkjets work reliably when used regularly. And tend not to when they aren&#x27;t. And this is even more the case when the inkjet is unplugged because of those annoying maintenance cycles in the middle of the night. Or in the middle of the day that result in an empty ink message despite not printing anything.<p>I went through the same thing for years. A cycle of dread where I avoided printing because half time printing seemed to mean a trip to the office supply store and twenty or sixty dollars in ink cartridges with the anticipation I would have a similar experience next time.<p>Now I print regularly because I know it&#x27;s ok and have had zero issues since April of 2018 when I realized &quot;oh fuck, I bought another printer.&quot; But it&#x27;s killer feature is third party ink support - OEM cartridges can be reset and refilled with inks that are good enough and the inks can be bought in bulk...where bulk means 100ml at a time for as little as $2&#x2F;oz (or ~$0.07&#x2F;ml).<p>When it runs out of ink, I can reset and refill the empties, top off the non-empties, swap out the cartridges, and put everything away and clean up the sink in about twenty minutes. Less time than going to the store and back. Since I have two full sets of cartridges, I can do the swap out before the refill and empties hold me up less than five minutes in practice.<p>Sure, there&#x27;s a big part of me that doesn&#x27;t feel that any of this should be necessary because...well it&#x27;s a computer. On the other hand, I can&#x27;t just use my laptop and close the lid without plugging it in. YMMV.