How much space does it take to maintain the drivers, support document and other bits you need in order to run an electronics product? Not much, I would say, probably a few dozen megabytes at the most. How much does a multi-billion dollar organization, let alone a global force in imaging, makes on the products we buy from it? Well, several billions of dollars, you would hope. You would therefore expect such a company to have the petty cash to maintain the aforementioned drivers, manuals and software for your product even after it stops making it, for the remote chance you would need to download those documents when you install that product anew on a different machine, right?
If you are talking about Canon, you would be dead false. You see, if you do not own a product from the last two years, well, you are dead in the water. Really. I have a Canon Pixma MP150 printer/scanner which I actually like and DO spend good money buying original ink for. But you see, Canon does not care enough about you or me, for that matter, to still have the files I need or expect to have there for me, on its site. If you go to their website’s support section or look for download for your device, and if that device is well, older than say, two years, you would find nothing. They do not care anymore. Or they cannot afford the cost of space. I would love to give them the space if they want me to host the files. I can afford it.
Reminds me of the conspiracy theorists who say that printers have a built-in limited lifespan. That is, you buy a vacuum cleaner and the manufacturer built it just bad enough so it dies 3 days after the warranty expires. In the case of Canon, that is probably right – if your printer is older than two years, maybe it should be dead already. Not sure Canon will stay on my shortlist anymore.
