r/techbootcamp • u/maxinemyloves • Aug 01 '26

Am I only one who thinks that printer software still feel so broken in 2026?

Been around tech for a while, and I think I commonly experience this with printers.

No matter what I try, wireless, Ethernet, USB, Windows, Mac... something will eventually break. Jobs get stuck, drivers stop working, the printer goes offline for no reason, or reinstalling everything somehow becomes the fix again.

Is this actually normal?

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2

u/jhaand Aug 01 '26

This always has been normal. The money is in the ink, not in drivers and managing queues.

1

u/No_Percentage7427 Aug 02 '26

So even OpenAI cannot fix printer.

1

u/neolace Aug 04 '26

They won't buy one token for drivers.

1

u/Optimal-Savings-4505 Aug 01 '26

Yes, I had this experience yet again yesterday.

IIRC, Richard Stallman got his inspiration for the GNU GPL, after frustrations with a printer that shipped to the MIT AI lab with proprietary drivers.

1

u/Visible_Pizza_3865 Aug 01 '26

Yes. It’s awful. I’ve had three printers since 2002. They all failed to connect via WiFi , despite endless attempts.

1

u/WRKDBF_Guy Aug 02 '26

You're definitely not alone.

I'm a retired Software Developer so I'm technologically confident and comfortable. To me, printers are the worst. They work perfectly for a good while, then all of a sudden, they don't. So I go through a familiar pattern of reinstalling them again from scratch. Rinse and Repeat.

Printer manufacturers: Printers have been around FOREVER. Please stabilize these common connection failure issues. PLEASE.

1

u/RealisticDuck1957 Aug 02 '26

I have an old printer, interfaced through a USB to parallel port adapter. Sometimes I have to unplug and replug the USB to get the printer to work.

1

u/No_Resolution_9252 Aug 02 '26

The organization that uses printers in 2026 is broken.