I'm pretty sure if you are ever at a point where you know the name of a service implementation, it likely forced you to use it in anger.

Which is to say, I had forgotten printing was with CUPS since it has been a long time since I had to mess with it. Hate to hear it went so poorly for you.

Funnily, macOS uses CUPS internally, iirc.

Here is a guy also being terribly disappointed with Linux about CUPS to the point that he said he will stop using it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0chgyL7u4Qs

For me personally, I would rather buy a new printer, the freedom of being able to change the software to run the way I want it is worth so much more.