For the record, the last time I did this it was Ubuntu and I think the printer was Brother. Neither particularly uncommon. Point is, because you're an apologist it literally doesn't matter what my circumstances are, you'll try to blame me anyways.
Just like you were describing your experience, I was describing mine.
But because you experienced the not-so-ideal scenario, doesn't mean that all scenarios are like that. If I used your argumentation, you are just an hater that blames system you don't like, in the most general way possible, which unsurprisingly includes scenarios that objectively do not conform to your description.
Note that I wrote "if the specific model is supported" and "the hard part is to choose, which model to purchase."
> Note that I wrote "if the specific model is supported" and "the hard part is to choose, which model to purchase."
Yeah, but that certainly doesn't mean it doesn't have a lot of problems with printers now does it? After all, I can say that IE works great as long as you only visit pages supported by IE.
Compared to other operating systems? Not that many problems. The printer queues do not magically disappear, or refuse to work for some unknown reason, which of course they will not tell you.
There are always both more and less problematic pieces of hardware. Given the forum where we discuss, it is reasonable to assume, that we both know which are which, and make a reasonable effort to avoid the former.
If doesn't always work: at home, I have an older Samsung MFD, which uses the older splix driver, and it works great. Due to that experience, I've got another Samsung printer for the office, but this one is newer and uses the closed-source uld driver. It means, that this printer doesn't work out of the box, driver installation is necessary (after that it will auto-discover anything it should, though). Not that it doesn't work, but it is a minor annoyance. It also means, that I won't be purchasing any Samsung-branded printer in the future (not that it matters, they sold the printer division to HP).
On the other hand, at friends & family, any HP printer, both inkjet and laser, worked out of the box. When I can, I won't be getting any Brother, OKI, Lexmark or another second-tier branded printer, because they were PITA even in 90's and under Windows.
So is it perfect for every piece of hardware? No. But is it that bad, as you said? Also no, that's too much overgeneralization and extrapolation.
The hard part is to choose, which model to purchase.