this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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This is why you shouldn't get your news from clickbait YouTubers. Especially when their source is a three-year-old reddit post that doesn't even support their claim.
This is disappointing for Rossman. I like his content a lot and he's on the right page, but I think he's big enough that he needs to start adopting some journalistic standards. For example, if he reads that some company is doing something stupid, at least bothered to call them and ask for a comment before he drags them through the mud on his channel.
It will be interesting if he follows his own statements and issues a public apology video titled appropriately.
Yeah, I generally trust him but he can be quick to accusations. I can understand why, especially when a company behaves badly. It's almost expected that companies are going to make their shit worse. But definitely needs to follow up and recant.
He usually apologises when he's discovered to be wrong. I know he's quick to accusations and stuff but he does seem level-headed (to me) overall.
Being level-headed would involve investigating before making accusations.
Apologies don't make up for being wrong in the first place. Usually they don't have the same reach, so the mis/disinformation spreads and many people never see the correction.
It's the same bullshit "news" companies do to sway opinion. They'll say something wrong, then a few days later put out a correction that a small fraction of people who saw the first part see. This let's them spread any lie they want while maintaining an image of being actual journalists to those not paying attention.
Mistakes happen. He comes with receipts, and sometimes those receipts are misleading. I don't think he's being intentionally wrong here, he took information from various communities reporting negative experiences, and extrapolated that there may be an issue there.
And it's not clear he's actually wrong. We have the company claiming they don't do it, but then what about the accusation that older firmware isn't available? Surely if they don't intend to break third party cartridges, they'd keep those available for people who want to downgrade. Maybe there's a good reason for that too, idk, but my point is that Brother could be hiding something, it's still unclear and we need more data.
I absolutely agree and think misinformation is terrible and disinformation is worse. However, I don't think he should be held to the same standard as a journalist. He just reads news from other people. He should definitely make sure it's truthful and factual ahead of time. But I do agree, it's kind of why we're in a crap state in the world right now.
Although his apology doesn't make up for it, he does at least make his apology on his main channel. I have seen other YouTubers make their apologies and such on alternate channels. I also don't think he makes excuses for it either.
If you have a platform, which he absolutely does, you have a responsibility for what you put out. He needs to check if it's true. If he can't, he needs to hire someone that will. Either he doesn't deserve the views or he needs to be responsible for his content. He doesn't deserve to get views with no responsibility. Everyone should be held to this standard.
He collects and edits news for media. He is a journalist.
Yeah, I do appreciate that he generally does apologize when he's wrong.
Rossman is a modern day Ralph Nader; he lives on outrage and the money it generates. He's generally correct but when he swings and misses, like he did in this case, it hurts his reputation.
I don't think he makes much from YouTube, and he's said as much. He just uses it as a platform to push pro-Right to Repair sentiment, and he's right way more often than he's not (with a healthy dose of hyperbole most of the time). Any miss here is because he didn't bother doing a bunch of research, because he doesn't really have an incentive to do so.
He owns a repair business and works for FUTO, that's where his money comes from.
I used to like and trust him, but he has gone way off the deepend of jumping to accusations for clickbait, exactly as this shows. It is sad because of how much he has fought for our rights, but sometimes I wonder if it is all getting to him.
Company's PR dept saying "we didn't do it" is not proof of anything.
If they're not blocking 3rd party cartridges, why even implement DRM?
Do they have so much extra money that they're developing features they're not planning to use just because they're bored?
So when someone uses random sludge instead of ink and breaks the printer they can point at that as the cause.
It's basic CYA. They'll let you do whatever you want, but if something goes wrong and it breaks then you're on your own.
That's a very charitable way of looking at DRM.
In this case, I kind of don't blame them in terms of warranty work. Like yeah, if the machine faults out within the warranty period, they should replace it. But if the machine breaks because someone uses $3 ink from a bodega that's made from busted open bic pens, then no manufacturer should be on the hook for replacement when caused by user negligence, and I don't blame a company for using some measure to determine that.
That's actually a fair price for 3rd party replacement.
I used to work at a computer shop, and people only ever bought the cheapest available cartridges.
We also used to do printer repair, do you know how many printers had to come in because of shitty ink?
The answer is zero.
And anyway, in your example the printer manufacturer has no business tracking your ink usage, whether it's by spying on you and phoning home, or recording this info in the printer's memory.
My main concern here is that they (allegedly, I haven't confirmed) remove old firmware. If customers want to try out older firmware to see if that fixes their problem, they should be able to. It doesn't cost much, so why not?
Yeah, voiding a warranty because the customer used something that could cause irreversible damage makes sense. Removing access to older firmware does not.
Ah, that's fair on the old firmware bit, I hadn't heard about that. I have a Brother laser printer, but it's locked down on my network for phoning home.
What's the domain you blocked?
I didn't block a domain, I restricted the printer's MAC from WAN access in my router's firewall. I can still access it from any device on my network, but it just can't phone home or search for firmware updates.
I mean "Brother says" is most definitely not proof that that person was wrong. Here's the question: Has anyone else able to verify their claim? Surely there are tens of thousands of printers out there that someone could verify...?
I dont see how the burden of proof is on Brother. If you're looking for verification from tens of thousands of other printer users and hearing crickets, i think you have your answer.
There is no "burden of proof" at all. Anyone is welcome to provide proof at any time.
I didn't look.
The burden of proof should be on whoever is making a claim. If someone accuses me of doing something with no evidence, my verbal denial shouldn't be skeptical without proof. Brother isn't in a position that they should require to provide proof against the claim being made against them. I didn't see any mention in the article of other user's printers being bricked aside from the original claim from 2022. Maybe some further investigation would come up with something, but claims made on Reddit posts and YouTube videos hardly count as proof of anything.
Sure, but they don't need to be proof of anything. Rossmann reported on some users (I think there were multiple?) claiming something to be the case, and provided one bit of verifiable evidence: no access to older firmware.
Brother claims they don't intentionally brick printers that use third party cartridges, but that's not verifiable. Brother also didn't mention anything about why older firmware isn't available. That's a significant concern, since that would be a way for customers to prove that the firmware itself is the issue (printer works -> upgrade -> broken -> downgrade -> printer works).
I think it's 100% fair to raise the concern. It's certainly not enough to warrant any kind of legal action, but it is enough for customers to investigate the claims for themselves. I think that's worthwhile.
I can agree with that, perhaps I misinterpreted the previous comments.
Maybe I misinterpreted either your previous comments or what the article is saying. But I can agree with that.