Brother is my current second favorite major brand. They are breaking a lot more than they used to and the parts that break aren’t worth replacing. Canon is putting out alright printers that seem a bit more robust to me. But honestly if you just put in the money up front even hp isn’t total trash. To get a not trash hp will cost $400, and there’s no guarantee that it won’t get a firmware update that makes it impossible to use third party ink, but it won’t require hpsmart and make you want to kill yourself. So yeah, spend more on your printer, don’t get an hp, and if you’re not gonna spend more on your printer get a black and white laser Canon imo.
I’m not sure, but I think part of the problem is that the votes are “real”. Since every instance has to have the same number of up/down votes they can’t get away with fudging the numbers. I have no hard evidence that reddit does, but I suspect they do to increase engagement.