Years ago, Brother printers seemed to be one of the few feasible options. What’s the printer landscape like today? Are there any plug and play options that aren’t part of some ink scam?
Long story short: if your printer supports IPP Everywhere (it probably does) you don’t need drivers or any sort of software other than CUPS.
This is the correct answer. IPP Everywhere support is often advertised as AirPrint and sometimes as Mopria, which all means that it will work with CUPS without extra drivers.
In fact, with the upcoming version 3, CUPS will drop direct support for non-IPP printers.
I have an HP LaserJet P1005 from 15 years ago which mostly works fine with Hplip except that every once in a while it asks me to reinstall the proprietary plugin needed. I’m taking note of how other brands seem to work better but to be honest I print so little since I digitally sign everything that once I run out of toner it’s far cheaper for me to have something printed in a shop than to replace it.
HP printers seem to work and even have dedicated linux software, like a print manager
Brother laser printers work great on the network.
