HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/hp-printers-computers-ink-cartridges-rivals/

by jeremylevy • 3 years ago

662 437 3 years ago

telegraph.co.uk

Selling something, and then remotely disabling it without the purchaser's knowledge or consent, sounds like vandalism to me.

perihelions• 3 years ago

Sounds like a CFAA felony (unauthorized access) and I couldn't cogently be able to explain why it's not.

(Because of a hidden clause in the ToS? Can you hide "we'll install ransomware on your PC" in a software ToS and enforce that, too? What's the very fine distinction between "we'll remotely disable your printer until you pay for exclusive, cryptographically-signed ink", and "we'll remotely encrypt your files and demand payments for the key?")

(It's not a particularly new idea, to extort someone under the pretense of selling them a useful service (exclusive ink). That's just "protection racket" — I think?)

carlmr• 3 years ago

At least in German law anything "surprising" in the ToS can't be enforced. This would definitely be surprising to most. So it couldn't legally be done with ToS.

WalterBright7• 3 years ago

For me, when you "purchase" something, it's yours and you can do whatever the hell you want with it.

If a "purchase" comes with "terms of use", it should not be classified as a purchase. It should be clearly labeled as "rent".

emodendroket11• 3 years ago

I would imagine their claim (probably written somewhere when you bought it) is that they do not guarantee it will work with any third-party components.

camhenlin• 3 years ago

Happens with their toner cartridges on laser printers too. I bought an HP laser, used some toner carts off Amazon, then got a software update and it wouldn’t recognize the toner carts. Had to replace them with HP cartridges from Staples at much higher cost to get back up and running, which I guess was their goal. Wouldn’t buy another one.

lb1lf• 3 years ago

Surely there must be a law against this?

You buy a product capable of using any toner, then the manufacturer disables this feature without your consent to push their own margins up?

denton-scratch3• 3 years ago

I'm not sure why a printer should need a firmware update. Even an MFP. Either it does what it's supposed to do when you buy it, or it's not fit for sale, and you return it. It should then just go on doing it's thing until it dies of old age, no?

nubinetwork2• 3 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090388

onepointsixC• 3 years ago

This doesn't sound legal, and if it is it shouldn't be.

gabereiser2• 3 years ago

It’s not, they were sued for this practice a few years ago. They continue to do it.

auggierose• 3 years ago

Did they lose the lawsuit?

eestrada• 3 years ago

So long as the cost (fines, legal fees, lost revenue due to bad press) is less than the increase in revenue they receive from forcing users to buy their overprices cartridges, HP's behavior won't change.

My most recent printer is an HP I bought at Costco because I knew it worked with CUPS and HPLIP on Linux and macOS. Given how many times I've seen HP pull this stunt though, I'll most likely shop for a different brand next time.

Part of this is also that HP has captured a LOT of corporate printing locations. The cost of migration for those businesses, universities and organizations is huge. I think that is why they keep getting away with this. Even if individual consumers move away from HP, they still own a huge chunk of the corporate printing market.

seized• 3 years ago

Time to get a Brother.

nubinetwork2• 3 years ago

Apparently they aren't all that great either... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131

ehPReth• 3 years ago

Can confirm they've started chipping toner carts now :/. I have two Brother printers, one that takes TN-450s (no chip, can be reset via button sequence) and one that takes TN-760s (chip, no button sequence reset to say the cartridge is full). Both can be set to 'continue printing' when the cartridge is 'empty', though*.

* Sometimes it "forgets" this setting, unsure the conditions to trigger that, but I imagine the retention sloppiness of this setting versus all the other ones it remembers (admin password, etc) is not an accident.

rahimnathwani• 3 years ago

Anecdata about the same model:

I have had a Brother MFC-L3750CDW for 3.5 years, and have printed over 5000 pages.

Even though I always use third party toners, I haven't seen that color registration issue.

Just now, I just went to the printer and let it do the 'calibration' and 'registration' steps. Then I printed a test image from the internet. None of the colours are offset.

xanathar• 3 years ago

Ask your parents, but be ware that it will take a few years for that to pay off.

Oh wait, you meant...

bastard_op• 3 years ago

As the article states, HP has even been sued for this, yet continues to do it as it's a core part of their profits to keep people buying THEIR ink. Profit alone for the printer itself isn't worth it, they'd otherwise they'd not even bother making printers anymore, but that reoccurring revenue from ink is some sweet sweet cash. It's like google/fakebook/twits whining about people blocking ads or using encryption they can't harvest data from as their source of revenue. Worlds smallest violin.

TobTobXX• 3 years ago

Worlds smallest violin?

atom058• 3 years ago

Worlds smallest violin?

It's a turn of phrase, where you are mocking someone by accompanying their expressed sadness (or whining) by "playing the world's smallest violin", e.g. by rubbing your fingers together

zczc• 3 years ago

https://xkcd.com/743/

cubefox3• 3 years ago

This issue is discussed for over 20 years now, it baffles me that there is apparently still no established solution.

By the way, Apple forcing users to install apps only via its 30% fee AppStore has provoked far less outrage. Probably because people are not directly aware of the Apple premium, in contrast to the HP premium.

cyberlurker• 3 years ago

Whether you think it is a good value is up for debate but users do get some benefit from buying through the App Store. (Security, convenience, etc.)

You get nothing extra from buying HP first party ink otherwise they wouldn’t do this.

cubefox3• 3 years ago

Same argument: "You get nothing extra from buying AppStore apps otherwise they wouldn’t do this."

golem142• 3 years ago

People are less upset because Apple does not brick the phone when the user downloads an app they don't like. (they might in the future, but not today).

cubefox3• 3 years ago

HP doesn't brick the printers either, it just doesn't print with third party cartridges.

lostlogin2• 3 years ago

Apple would get the outrage if other app stores existed but you risked bricking your phone if you installed apps from them.

Part of the difference here is likely due to Apple primarily penalising the developers (second order effects hit the consumer). If Apple were directly hitting consumers it would be a louder series of protests.

HP are targeting the consumers, not the 3rd party suppliers, which Apple hits.

WirelessGigabit• 3 years ago

Apple (reversibly) bricks parts of the phone, even when you buy genuine parts, because they want you to pay them for the new components to be allowed to talk to each other.

scarface745• 3 years ago

Maybe because most non game apps never pay the 30% fee (Netflix, Spotify, apps that see physical services like Uber, apps that require a subscription outside of the App Store) and according to the Epic lawsuit, most of the revenue (80%+) comes from slimy pay to win games.

nemothekid• 3 years ago

Probably because people are not directly aware of the Apple premium,

It's because it's developers who piss and moan about the 30%, while most consumers get value from having to go through the AppStore, such as 1.) being able to cancel subscriptions quickly and easily and 2.) ensuring that developers aren't abusing permissions to siphon data from the device.

_piif2• 3 years ago

Also it's actually only a 15% cut for the vast majority of developers. Shouldn't matter either way once Apple is forced to allow sideloading.

timothyduong• 3 years ago

Because a printer can’t function without ink, that’s its sole purpose unless it is a multi function printer.

iPhones and iPads, you still can do other things, it’s not a paper weight cause you rooted your device or sideloaded an emulator…

mcny5• 3 years ago

The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this because it just becomes the cost of doing business.

No, you can’t say it wasn’t your decision. If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express written orders.

VWWHFSfQ3• 3 years ago

Prison time? For bricking an $80 printer unless you use specific parts? I don't think so. Let's try to stay on planet earth here..

jxf• 3 years ago

Not saying they should go to jail, but OP is saying they're bricking potentially millions of printers, not one $80 printer.

rvense4• 3 years ago

I'm quite sure you can go to prison for stealing a printer. Why not for breaking one?

clipsy2• 3 years ago

You deliberately misrepresent this as one $80 printer; in reality it is the sum total of all printers bricked by this, plus price gouging the printer owners who don’t want their printer bricked.

If even a few dozen printers were bricked by this it would represent more lost value than the threshold for grand larceny in many jurisdictions; do you propose we let people who steal, say, $1600 of goods walk away scot free? And don’t waste your breath on fines —- those will only be passed on to the captive consumers as the “cost of business.”

alanbernstein3• 3 years ago

Ink isn't a "part".

throwbadubadu• 3 years ago

It's not a 80$ printer but damage to society, or if you find that exaggerated hurting and lying to customers.

Prison is hard, on the other hand let the scale of damage and intention decide.. more human would be just stick to penalties. They just must be high enough to hurt really, not ridiculous amounts you can price in. Like do it once and maybe get away with it, but do it twice or thrice and you will quite certainly bankrupt the company.

liendolucas2• 3 years ago

I can't believe such a response. Is not the $80 dollar printer, is that HP is crossing a line, boarding the realm of illegality, misappropriating an electronic device that should be yours. And is also not money that you lose. Is frustration, time and feeling miserably deceit by a corporation that gives a shit about you. Also that you probably end up buying another printer and/or wasting time doing some research on printers online to not fall again into a dirty and dodgy maneuver like this.

mcv3• 3 years ago

Poor people sometimes go to prison for far smaller crimes than this. The problem is that far too often, rich and powerful people are only held accountable if they hurt other rich and powerful people.

And if it's a million $80 printers affected by this, it's an $80 million crime.

gameman1442• 3 years ago

I don't think prison time is even what's needed here, I think these issues would resolve themselves if corporate fines were continually issued, rather than one-off lawsuits. For instance, a standing ruling that if your printer stops being able to print for no reason other than a contract breach, then the hardware is eligible for a refund.

We don't need to put CEOs in prison for making consumer-hostile decisions, we just need to also make those decisions bad business.

kerkeslager5• 3 years ago

Corporate fines just end up being passed on to workers who had nothing to do with the decision. "We had to (lay off 10% of our workforce|cut worker pay by 10%|etc.) because of these unfair fines."

Corporations aren't people--they can't make the decision to do unethical things. Yes, I understand the law, I'm saying the law is incorrect. People do unethical things, and people should be held responsible for their actions.

Fining decision-makers might be an acceptable alternative to jail time, as long as the minimum fine is some sort of multiple of profits gained, to prevent criminals from just figuring a slap on the wrist fine into their decision-making math.

mcny5• 3 years ago

I used to think this as well but then I learned of something called a principal-agent problem. I am talking in general, so while fines might work in this exact case, they won’t work in general. The CEO and board supervising the crimes might be long gone and no longer a part of the corporation by the time the law catches up with them and the owners / shareholders are left holding the bag.

I understand what I am advocating might seem against existing case law about LLC and as I’ve said before I am not a lawyer so it might not be something straightforward to codify but I know it is possible if we have the will and we make it a priority.

I would hope we should have the owners of our economy, the 0.0001% of the population on our side on this matter because upper management is robbing them or they will if we institute reasonably high enough fines instead of prison time.

option2• 3 years ago

the CEO absolutely needs to face prison for this - they basically destroyed other peoples’ property.

boycott-israel• 3 years ago

This is a surprisingly naive thing to say in the era of a CEO having a fiduciary duty to maximise shareholder-value over the short-term / their tenure (whichever is shorter)

jackphilson• 3 years ago

or just let the free market run it's course.

joe_the_user• 3 years ago

I think you're fundamentally incorrect that a more consistent fine structure could fix the problems we have now.

The basic reason is that the US (and the Western World) has gone through deregulation to re-monopolization, so consumers face monopolies or oligopolies in most major markets and these entities basically make their money by selling their products as "services" in the chunk-size that makes a consume most desperate - IE, Hp will fight forever to sell 100 prints for $30 rather than 10000 prints for $120 and only hard threats can stop them (and we know the shit MS does - if MS could charge an ambulance a fee to keep their heart monitor software from killing them, they would, etc).

FrontierPsych• 3 years ago

Workers, yes, but mainly consumers. A million dollar fine, if you sell 500,000,000 cartridges (just a guess, but in 2012 I searched and saw they sold 315 million worldwide) means they would have to charge .2 cents per cartridge to pay for the fine. ''

I hardly think that issuing any fine would make them care. Why would the CEO give one little tiny shit about a million dollar fine, or a ten million dollar fine for that matter. They just pass it on to the consumer. And that is only passing on the cost of the fine only to the ink division. They could easily pass on the costs to all departments.

Fines are silly and useless. I guess if they were to have a $500 million fine, that would get the company's attention, but I don't see that ever happening, honestly.

But I think if they put the C-suite and board of directors into jail for 8 years, that would have a major effect on all boards and executives.

And right now, corporations are claiming supply chains and inflation for raising their prices, yet they have the largest profits ever. This can only mean that they are raising their prices but their costs are staying the same or rising very little. All of them should be put in prison - robbing the poor and middle class to put that wealth in the hands of the rich. More siphoning money from the poor and middle class. Put them in prison, I say. Make some example. This is not about price controls, but against holding the US population hostage. Is there collusion? Because that is against the law. That is not controlling prices. Collusion is collusion.

hedora2• 3 years ago

The fine would have to be akin to a corporate death penalty, so that the CEO would never work again. Ideally, it would also pierce the veil of limited liability, so they’d be stuck in court for the next few decades.

For this case, computing back:

94M printers are sold per year.

HP’s market cap is $29 billion.

So, fine them $1000 per printer they sold that has any sort of anti-third-party ink mechanism, payable direct to consumer. (This seems about right to me. It’s less than 10x the retail price of a printer.)

Production of a receipt or a picture of an HP branded printer serial number should be all that is required to obtain the $1000. If they fail to pay in 30 days, individuals can use the mechanism where the sherrif walks into an HP office and takes $1000 worth of stuff on behalf of the claimant.

After 12 months, any unclaimed money gets sent to charity.

As appropriate as that would be, I’d rather see the CEO and execs that approved this stuff go to federal maximum security prison for life than for all the unrelated HP employees to lose their jobs. (Though, arguably, their services would be better used elsewhere.)

screwturner68• 3 years ago

The issue is the fine is paid by the company and not the people who actually did the crime. As a result, the CEO, the board and the other players will all get big fat bonuses and the company will take a hit. When the company takes a hit one thing happens the people at the bottom of the chain get fired, not the decision makers, not the people who pushed this policy but some fucking engineer that just had his first kid and thought being and engineer at HP was a great job. The system is setup so that people who screw up never pay but the people who have nothing to do with the problem always pay the bill. If the idiots at the top actually had some accountability I think we'd see a lot different choices being made, but that is just a pipe dream in the world we live in.

margalabargala• 3 years ago

I'm not sure that will work. The intention here is to move the needle on what's acceptable.

If fines grow/shrink, then people will think "what are ways to get around these fines?" or more commonly "Are these fines larger than the profit I would earn?". Even if fines are increased for now, that's a temporary thing, and not everyone would care.

A CEO doesn't personally care about extra fines costing the company; that can be a "calculated risk". CEOs are very well paid and fines are generally an inconvenience. But these people cannot buy time; threaten to take away years of their life, and see how the underlying value structures change.

twangist2• 3 years ago

We don't need to put CEOs in prison for making consumer-hostile decisions, we just need to also make those decisions bad business.

Maybe we don't need to, but we should.

twangist2• 3 years ago

We don't need to put CEOs in prison for making consumer-hostile decisions, we just need to also make those decisions bad business.

Maybe we don't need to, but let's.

HeavyStorm2• 3 years ago

No; we need jail.

elbigbad• 3 years ago

I like the sentiment a lot but curious what law this is against that has prison time as a consequence? I can’t think of any, but if there are none, we should pass laws that allow this to put these people on notice and then aggressively prosecute.

option2• 3 years ago

intentionally destroying someone’s property?

rhaway84773• 3 years ago

HN is so bipolar.

This seems to be the top vote comment here, demanding jail time for CEOs for printers not working.

Meanwhile, the top comment on an article painstakingly detailing how a company is using every dirty trick in the book to get mentally incapable or distressed, etc people to sell homes to them at far below market value has a top comment basically saying “well, they signed a contract”.

Or maybe it’s as simple as this affects most HNers, so it’s the worst thing in the world, whereas that doesn’t, so people it does affect are just suckers.

jeltz2• 3 years ago

HN is more than just one guy and different articles attract different audiences.

throwawayadvsec• 3 years ago

Isn't it a good thing that HN isn't a hivemind?

detrites2• 3 years ago

While I generally agree, there's something more immediate. All of us having this view can refuse to ever buy or even use HP products, and explain to anyone and everyone at every opportunity exactly why this is.

Boycotts can be immensely powerful, and strike fear into the hearts of those who would exploit us.

Personally, I will never buy an HP product again. Absolute, permanent blacklist.

It's simply way too disgusting to me that they would even consider doing this, let alone actually carry it out.

What must they think of their customers? It's unforgivable.

ClumsyPilot6• 3 years ago

Boycotts can be immensely powerful, and strike fear into the hearts of those who would exploit us.

I cannot find a single example of a successful boycott in my lifetime. Can you?

ryao19• 3 years ago

How about switching to laser printers from brands that do not play these shenanigans? As far as I know, the only one that does not do it is Canon, which has the same security chips, but lets you opt into disabling third party cartridge support.

Also, of interest, is that HP and Canon printers can use the same toner cartridges:

https://www.shop.xerox.com/supplies-accessories?brand=6346

For the most part, HP does not make its own printers anymore and just sells rebadged printers running their own firmware. It would not surprise me if the ink for HP Smart Tank printers is identical to the ink for Canon Mega Tank printers.

They reportedly are selling some models using technology that they obtained from Samsung, but aside from that, very little of what they sell they actually make. They are basically a middle man.

underwater• 3 years ago

Let's apply the same logic to people then. "John scammed his neighbour of his life savings, we don't need to lock him up because lots of people will refuse to associate with him or supply him with goods and services."

Making loss of business or minor fines the only mechanism for correcting behaviour, means that the leaders can view antisocial and unethical behaviour as a cost benefit tradeoff. And the lack of personal accountability means the company leadership has very limited downside, even if they completely screw up.

crazygringo8• 3 years ago

Why not send top stockholders to prison while you're at it? And regional managers as well? And the stores that sell the printers too?

No, prison makes zero sense. When people agree to a business contract and one side fails to uphold their end of the bargain, the remedy should remain financial. And punitive remedies exist precisely to make sure the "cost of doing business" makes it no longer profitable.

And if that's not happening, then that's the fault of the legislators and voters. This is why we need to vote people into office who ensure that consumer protection laws remain strong.

anigbrowl• 3 years ago

It's not as if corporate actors are passive non-participants in the political process, abstaining from lobbying or campaign financing. It's much more economical for corporation to influence legislation/regulation than for voters to build a coalition and then try to leverage it to significantly alter the status quo. Ignoring this reality makes idealistic arguments like yours seem naive at best.

ClumsyPilot6• 3 years ago

When people agree to a business contract and one side fails to uphold their end of the bargain, the remedy should remain financial

Not at all - when one party intends to cheat another, we call that fraud and we do send people to jail for this regularly.

bcrosby95• 3 years ago

So fraud shouldn't result in prison time? This isn't an "oops I couldn't do what I said", it's purposeful.

_greim_• 3 years ago

Why not send top stockholders to prison while you're at it?

Or just curtail every holder's shares by a fixed percentage, if/when a publicly-owned company is found to have engaged in anti-competitive behavior. If the incentive of maximizing shareholder value is no longer aligned with the interests of society, maybe that's how to fix it.

oxfordmale3• 3 years ago

Just stop buying HP printers.

If you bought and it is still under warranty, ask for a full refund. You likely won't get it, but make sure HP waste as much time as possible dealing with this

In the UK it is even worth considering to take this to the small claims court. Of course seek legal advice first.

The only way HP gets away with this, because people just accept this kind of behaviour.

pessimizer2• 3 years ago

The only way HP gets away with this, because people just accept this kind of behaviour.

No, the way they get away with it is to collude, and make sure customers have no other choices.

ClumsyPilot6• 3 years ago

The only way HP gets away with this, because people just accept this kind of behaviour

please name a situation in the past 50 years where a conpany went under or lost at least 10% of their revenue from'peiple not accepting' this behaviour

M95D• 3 years ago

Most HPs are bought by companies. People who decide to buy HP are not those that use them and not even those that refill them.

JKCalhoun• 3 years ago

Knowing HP's shitty policies some years ago I bought an HP color laser printer off eBay that was already then several years old. It was a model I understood to be able to work with cheap 3rd party ink cartridges.

I feel like these older, pre-dynamic security printers are going to be gold. Hang on to your babies, keep them safe, keep them running.

armchairhacker• 3 years ago

How the heck would you create such a law with no unintended consequences? “If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express written orders.” So if a low-wage worker goes mad and kills his coworker the CEO should be charged with murder? What if his salary got cut and it was a customer? Where do you draw the line?

What’s needed is regulation and fines, so that it’s not the “cost of doing business” and they lose money (the one thing that dictates their decisions) from this stunt. If there was actually a decent competitor, they could simply be forced to fully refund impacted customers who decide to switch, but HP has basically a monopoly on printers. This is a sign they need to be broken up or put under strict regulation like utilities.

That would a) fully repay affected customers, b) stop the practice for future customers, and c) discourage other companies from this practice. IMO 3 goals, and the only 3 reasons, we have a justice system and punishments in the first place. This isn’t an action which caused permanent, life-altering harm. This is an action which can be 110% undone (via extra fines), so no further punishment is necessary.

And yes, I know petty thieves and druggies serve jail time for causing much lesser problems. That’s wrong too. “2 wrongs don’t make a right”

emodendroket11• 3 years ago

Step one would probably be making this practice illegal in the first place, which, as far as I can tell, it isn't. Putting the cart before the horse to worry about who's liable for doing something legal.

RobotToaster3• 3 years ago

Just being able to hold CEOs and directors vicariously liable for employee actions like this would be a good start.

emodendroket11• 3 years ago

What criminal law have they violated?

ROTMetro• 3 years ago

As someone here came up with, as punishment instead of fines the government should be granted X percentage non-dilutable ownership of the company. Mess up once, you now have to deal with the government owning 5% or more. This punishes the shareholders/owners in a real way that fines don't. If the business continues to mess up the government would acquires more ownership until it becomes majority owner and can completely clean house. The Government can sell their ownership after X years or if once in majority control replaces X people in management. Funds from sales could not be used for general budget purposes (to prevent the government from instituting taking as policy) but instead social goods projects (provide waterworks improvement grants, provide scholarships, etc).

mhb• 3 years ago

The government takes money for public education from me and doesn't let me swap cartridges (i.e., spend that money on a less crappy school that it doesn't run). So not looking forward to your plan.

rqtwteye2• 3 years ago

Make them pay the fines personally. They take credit and make big money when employees do the right thing, so let's make it a two way street. Once their net worth gets wiped, maybe they will get the message.

RedNifre• 3 years ago

This does not work, they have insurance against this.

Xeoncross• 3 years ago

Punishment should fit the crime. We don't over-punish people to force them to think differently, that has always led to dark periods in history.

There are plenty of low-friction ways consumers could be reimbursed plus the cost of lost time or energy spent on a now 'broken' printer if we wanted to solve this in a fair way.

codedokode2• 3 years ago

But in America people are overpunished. I often read titles like "he faces up to 100 years in a prison" when in reality it is just a poor Russian guy who didn't murder or hurt anyone, just collected credit card numbers and sold it to other guys. 100 years just for stealing a bit of money? That's draconian laws.

JumpCrisscross• 3 years ago

CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this

This is the sort of overreaction that kills reasonable responses, like making HP reimburse everyone whose printer they disabled, trebled, plus pay a big fine to a regulator and also enter into a consent decree. Hit them with a market cap decimating fine. Then let the Board eat its own.

ajuc• 3 years ago

like making HP reimburse everyone whose printer they disabled

won't happen, because most of the customers live in different countries with different law systems

hit them with a market cap decimating fine

won't happen, because most of the costs is beared by people in foreign countries who don't matter to US courts, and most of the profits are gathered by people in US (company, owners, shareholders, employees, budget)

It's not an accident that most of the time google and apple are fined by EU and VW is fined by USA.

Spooky232• 3 years ago

Why? HP has documented that they do this for years.

The solution is really simple. Buy a printer that doesn’t do this. Many exist. They cost more, because HP sells these as loss leaders.

ryao19• 3 years ago

Which printers with ink cartridges does HP sell that are not loss leaders? Do they not do this on them?

gaze• 3 years ago

It’s frustrating to see people argue this. Not because it’s wrong, but besides basically anything that makes it not worth doing will work. The debate to be had is over what is to be done to put policies that discourage this activity in place. Bikeshedding what to do basically just passifies the urge to debate the actually important thing.

nimbius• 3 years ago

Say what you will about Carly fiorinas leadership strategy but she certainly set a record for how fast you can pedal an american institution into the ground.

If it weren't for government contracts and Gartner quadrant payola I don't think HP would even exist.

testfoobar• 3 years ago

In a competitive market, individual consumer decisions punish bad actors.

bluescrn• 3 years ago

Prison is excessive.

But how about some sort of environmental levy on any device prematurely 'bricked', or disposed of before reaching a certain lifespan.

Including those bricked by server shutdowns, or by the inevitable failure of non-replaceable batteries. Perhaps even those designed to be somewhat fragile but not economically repairable - thinking of all the phones and tablets discarded due to cracked screens.

brewdad2• 3 years ago

Isn’t an environmental levy just a fine? Maybe prison is excessive but there needs to be a way to punish bad actors personally on an individual level. It’s clear that current corporate level fines aren’t effective.

wdr1• 3 years ago

The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this.

I'm not sure if it's hyperbole or not. If it's not, what law was broken?

(Honest question. I'm not a fan of this, but I was curious if it's actually illegal.)

clnq• 3 years ago

Maybe none. Everything was done above board, capitalism (growing capital as a core value) worked as intended.

It was immoral and unethical but those are lesser concerns than maximising return on capital invested. Possibly, no law was clearly broken.

We need to outsource some of our lawmaking to ethics boards/commissions if we want to keep capitalism. Otherwise, every other company is now looking to defraud its customers and that’s the only way an endless desire for capital growth (exponential growth expectations from investors) goes.

javajosh• 3 years ago

Worth noting that we make things illegal when we feel they should be illegal, and for no other reason. In a democracy the feeling turns to a vote which turns to legislation. In this case, we would pass a law making executives personally criminally liable for anti-competative, anti-consumer behavior like this. I do not think it would run afoul of the Constitution, either.

I think we should pass the law and try it out, see how it feels.

rocqua• 3 years ago

The argument isn't. "This is illegal so the CEO should be jailed". Instead the argument is "This should be made illegal so the threat of jail ensures CEOs keep this from happening."

josephcsible• 3 years ago

A fine would totally work if it were big enough, e.g., 100% of the revenue of every affected printer and corresponding ink cartridge ever sold.

znpy3• 3 years ago

If you don’t want to be held accountable you shouldn’t be ceo at all, in my opinion.

quantum_state• 3 years ago

100% on the mark!

LeonB• 3 years ago

While I support the notion of a lengthy spell of contemplation inside the walls of a prison for all CEOs of printer companies — even prior to this cartridge issue — I cannot help but feel that anything short of summary execution is excusable for the engineer or engineers who were responsible for the logic and error messages pertaining to “PC Load Letter”.

slowmovintarget• 3 years ago

Or have no one buy their printers...

jimnotgym• 3 years ago

They should also order that HP replaces all of the printers. Make it costly and hard work

user6723• 3 years ago

Hey mcny look up Intel ME/AMT, we probably agree there too.

throwaway038519• 3 years ago

It's at times like this that I'm reminded of what Howard Scott said: "A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who hasn't sufficient capital to form a corporation."

Funny how access to enough money to form a corporation, does in certain circumstances tend to clothe your subsequent actions in virtue...

HeavyStorm2• 3 years ago

I completely agree.

VWWHFSfQ3• 3 years ago

The Paperless Revolution will hopefully one day bankrupt Hewlett Packard.

kayson• 3 years ago

It seems like there is enough competition in the printer market that this wouldn't be a thing. Are the margins so thin that all manufacturers depend on ink sales? Otherwise I don't understand why one wouldn't make universal ink compatibility a major selling point and force everyone to follow suit.

clipsy2• 3 years ago

The margins on home inkjet printer sales are not just low, they are typically negative. Which, coupled with incurious/cheap customers makes it very hard for an honest printer manufacturer to compete.

wongarsu2• 3 years ago

They sell printers at a loss and make the money back on ink sales. You can get printers with refillable ink tanks from all (three) major manufacturers, but they cost significantly more because they aren't subsidized by ink sales

janoc2• 3 years ago

And you have to search for them online or order from various strange places because no major stores where people actually go buy "computer stuff" carry them. Coincidence? I think not.

Worse, even the lot more expensive "office" printers (both laser and inkjets) have been sabotaged by such "driver update for your own good" shenanigans in the past. This isn't limited only to the cheapest disposable inkjet junkers.

throwaway815233• 3 years ago

competition

Oh you sweet summer child. Relevant cartoon, ignoring caption: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_U-39iprM4Cs/SfZWFzmSQ-I/AAAAAAAAA...

They ALL do it.

rvense4• 3 years ago

Imagine if IKEA sent someone to your house to smash your plates if you used cutlery they didn't like.

The CEO and board who are supervising this ought to be barred from ever running a company again.

avewa• 3 years ago

A more apt analogy would be that you entered a contract in which IKEA rented you a house at a great discount and in exchange you can only furnish the house with IKEA furniture and then they caught you buying stuff somewhere else and kicked you out.

The "smash your plates" part is not adequate because the 3rd party ink cartridges are not being destroyed. If you promise to keep buying IKEA furniture they'll let you return to the house.

If you don't like the terms of this contract (I don't) then don't sign it. Easy!

serf2• 3 years ago

If you don't like the terms of this contract (I don't) then don't sign it. Easy!

it is disingenuous to frame a consumer purchase as the entry into a contract, even if that is the case much of the time.

but I do agree with the idea of boycott through avoidance.

alanbernstein3• 3 years ago

The problem is that none of this is obvious to an unaware consumer who thinks they're just buying a printer. The marketing practices surrounding this are deliberate and have a side effect of producing a huge amount of preventable waste.

rvense4• 3 years ago

That's not a more apt analogy at all, that's the stupid explanation they might give to tell themselves they're not being bastards, which they objectively are. It's not about laws or contracts, why are you twisting yourself to defend this?

People bought a printer to print, they were able to print, now they're not due to HP's vandalism. It's so obviously not OK. If HP can't make a printer to sell for $80 then should just not sell printers for $80.

Bran_son6• 3 years ago

you entered a contract in which IKEA rented you a house

I love how any interaction with a company means we enter into a one-sided contract with them and own nothing, despite spending money. Don't like it? Just go live in a cave!

If you are making a purely legal argument, then you are on shaky ground, and there are limits to what is considered a valid contract (especially in the EU), and what terms it may contain, but you might persuade a judge.

If you are making a moral argument, it is indefensible.

mrighele• 3 years ago

It's not an apt comparison at all because renting a house and buy an appliance are two completely different things. In particular when you buy a printer you don't sign any contract so HP cannot say "you accepted our terms when you bought it". No I didn't.

millzlane• 3 years ago

I like brother printers.

lostlogin2• 3 years ago

Is it possible to like a printer? Frustration, irritation and anger would summarise my feelings about them.

CamperBob2• 3 years ago

I liked my 1993-model LaserJet 4 until I realized what it was doing to my electric bill. I'd probably still be using it otherwise. Built to survive nuclear Armageddon.

The only tougher printer was the LaserJet 3 it replaced, which was built to survive an asteroid strike.

wrd83• 3 years ago

Honestly this is a waste of money, resources and time.

The EU had forced other things nicely like walled gardens.

I would love to see a law for inter operability for third parties.

wkat42422• 3 years ago

I thought all brands used this eco system now with little tanks you can just pour ink in? That's all I see in the shops now.

But I just have an old b/w laser

someweirdperson• 3 years ago

I thought it was only epson. But it seems that cannon and hp offer bottle-fed printers, too.

tbirdny• 3 years ago

I have a Canon MegaTank printer G6020. It comes with more ink than I can print in a lifetime. I've had it for two years and the ink is maybe down 1%. The only problem is I only print a couple pages every few weeks and so I guess the ink dries out and then the head gets clogged, I assume. Cleaning the heads can sometimes help, but it doesn't always work, and only works once or twice and then it's clogged forever. It happened to my printer and a relative's. We are each missing one color. One of us is missing cyan and the other yellow, I think. We can still print in black and white though since the black color is still working. If it wasn't for that major flaw, they would be great printers. The quality and features are very good. The price was great considering how long the ink should last.

Also, when you clean the heads it ends up dumping the ink in a foam pad in the back of the printer, and that fills up and turns into a mess. I haven't looked at my pad, but that's what I saw on some YouTube videos.

wkat42422• 3 years ago

Yup that's why I bought a laser. They don't dry out (though in exceptionally high humidity the opposite can happen where the toner starts clumping up). But generally for a one page a month scenario laser really kills inkjets for that reason.

Really nice for boarding passes too as the ink doesn't run when it gets wet. I know, electronic but stuff like that I prefer to have a hardcopy of.

But really if you print photo quality stuff weekly inkjet is unbeatable especially with these new tanks. I've not seen a color laser that prints acceptable photos.

CoastalCoder2• 3 years ago

I'm curious if this significantly hinges on the validity of EULAs, especially ones with onerous terms.

DiabloD3• 3 years ago

Did you know Brother makes really good printers that are inexpensive and live a long, happy, life? And their drivers aren't user hostile?

This is one of those really good "vote with your wallets" situations.

alanbernstein3• 3 years ago

I know that. There are no signs at best buy that tell people that BEFORE they unknowingly buy these garbage products.

macintux• 3 years ago

During previous discussions about this there have been some comments indicating Brother is headed down this road as well. No idea how accurate that is.

jwilk2• 3 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131

wongarsu2• 3 years ago

Or buy a laser printer. They cost a bit more upfront, but a single toner cartridge lasts ages (and won't dry out or get used up in cleaning cycles), the printers are generally much more robust and longer lasting, and because laser printing isn't as patent-encumbered there's more actual competition and less outright user-hostile behavior.

sgc• 3 years ago

I use a Brother laser with non-oem cartridge. That is what Brother is known for.

userbinator• 3 years ago

Lasers printers that use cartridges have similar DRM.

and won't dry out or get used up in cleaning cycles

On the other hand, if you live in a humid climate, toner can clump. This may explain the popularity of inkjets in Southeast Asia.

joering2• 3 years ago

I would like to vouch for Xerox laser printers. Not only they don't identify your printouts with tiny yellow markings/serial number, but also they gladly accept off-market toners, and places like Amazon have many different brands that race to the bottom of price making it easy to try out what works for you. I am on my third Xerox laser printer and couldn't be happier.

scarface745• 3 years ago

Exactly this, I've not gone near an inkjet printer since 1992. When Apple released it's first "affordable" $1000 laser printer.

cydonian_monk• 3 years ago

Even they're not exempt from being messed with. I had an HP color laser printer which, when purchased, would print on any paper size that would fit in the printer. (Specifically used it to print to US Legal Size.) A firmware update some years back disabled printing to anything larger than US Letter Sized.

I now own a Brother printer that is perfectly happy to print to larger paper.

xahrepap• 3 years ago

Still avoid HP. I have an HP color laser printer. It worked flawlessly. Then the toner ran out and I replaced it with a 3rd party toner.

The printer just stopped working from most of my computers. I tried everything.

I was going to replace it, then decided to try a 1st party cartridge again. And it’s been basically flawless again.

Such a scam.

croutonwagon• 3 years ago

Lasers also have issues. I had a laser my last printer but had issues with the imgaging drum and other parts. Eventually tonor ended up on some of the rollers and the printer was basically useless at this point.

I bought an epson workforce back some years ago. When it had printing issues i was able to do some cleaning runs and reslove. I have used ink quite a bit over time. But probably not nearly as much as the imaging drum, rollers and other parts i ended up swapping trying to stop the darkened prints on my main machine. The original laser was about 400 bucks, inkjet like 89.99. I dont think i spent more on the inkjet, even after the swaps.

RandomBK• 3 years ago

I'm still rocking a Brother DCP-7060D from over a decade ago, using an aftermarket toner I bought from my university tech store.

kerkeslager5• 3 years ago

Yes, I was going to mention Brother. They're excellent; I've bought their products for years.

But, given advertising is legal, and HP advertises much more aggressively than Brother, we can't rely on "vote with your wallet" to solve this problem. "Vote with your wallet" doesn't work when one competitor is spending money on making quality products and the other is spending money on advertising.

The entire premise that capitalism brings the best products at the lowest cost is falsified by advertising.

ravenstine2• 3 years ago

I've had my Brother laser printer for 10 years, only changed the toner cartridge once, and it immediately starts printing when you need it to. One of the best purchases I ever made!

einpoklum4• 3 years ago

I use a Brother multi-function (MFC-L2710DW).

And their drivers aren't user hostile?

They offer a closed-source Linux and you need to download an installer from them (an i386 binary, which also works on i686 and x86_64); so, not great. The driver is mostly-reliable, although every once in a while it does kind of give out on you and printing fails, possibly until a restart. I suppose on Windows it's better.

really good printers that are inexpensive and live a long life?

I bought mine about 4.5 years ago; hardware seems fine so far.

happy life

yeah, so... not so much when it comes to toners. Either the toner capacity is really low, or the MFP becomes disenchanted with toners quickly. I get "Toner Low" extremely quickly - even with only a few hundred pages printed. Granted, I don't print much these days, but still. And I've already experienced a case in which I put in a new toner and was already told it was low.

Other than that no complaints.

RobotToaster3• 3 years ago

They offer a closed-source Linux and you need to download an installer from them

Similar experience with their label printers, except they only had a i386 binary, which rather killed my idea of a raspberry pi print server. Also it was generally just terrible and froze after a few labels.

scarface745• 3 years ago

It amazes that in 2023, other operating systems still need separate drivers for printers. I just look for AirPrint compatible printers and they work seamless from my Mac, iPhone and iPad. I pulled an old 2010 iPad out a couple of years ago and it could print to a brand new printer.

andrewaylett• 3 years ago

When I got my recently-acquired MFC-L3550CDW home, I went to set it up over the network and it just worked. Trying to install the drivers stopped it working :P.

I've not tried printing to it over USB, but over Ethernet it supports IPP and mDNS so all you need to do to print is connect the printer to the network and CUPS will find it automatically.

At some point in the last ten years, network printing has gone from dark magic to just working, and in my experience working better on Linux than Mac or Windows. Printing from Android took a smidge of manual set up but now also just works when called upon. It's almost disappointing, until I remember that while I quite enjoy tinkering I also bought the printer to actually print stuff.

The scanner? Also just works over the network. Mind blown.

albert_e• 3 years ago

if you open the printer's IP address in your PC browser ..you get a webpage with a lot of settings for the printer.

I recently found that there is a setting in printer admin page called "Replace Toner".

By default the printer is set to STOP printing as soon as "Toner Low" status is reached.

But we can set it to "Continue" so that it continues printing with low toner instead of immediately replacing it.

Mine has been printing fine since last 1 year after this. FYI ... I print like 10 pages in a busy month.

It just gives me "Low Toner" / "Replace Toner" warning each time and still prints just fine.

And this cartridge is a cheap $15 toner refill i had bought off Amazon 2-3 years ago.

printer : Brother DCP L2540-DW bought 8 years ago for $100.

other than occassional connectivity issues like once a year that required reinstalling printer drivers on Win 10 ... I have been super happy.

snvzz2• 3 years ago

Not every Brother printer is usable.

Ethernet, IPP and Postscript support are requirements.

So that they can work with generic drivers, on a range of platforms, without much setup complexity.

RobotToaster3• 3 years ago

My brother laser seems to eat colour toner when it's only printing black and white for some reason.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a decent printer, but short of what I would consider "really good".

Also, I read here in another thread that a recent firmware update also blocked third party cartridges.

galleywest200• 3 years ago

Brother is great unless you need to configure it to fax over VoIP. I recall horror stories from my technical support days. Had to walk users, over the phone, through navigating to the settings and then changing a binary (literally) value.

Ok now it says 01101101 and I need you to change it to 10001111.

Something to that effect. Ew.

local_crmdgeon3• 3 years ago

To be fair, that's a truly niche usecase.

themodelplumber2• 3 years ago

HPLIP though...HP has done a good job of making no-brainer printers even be no-brainers in Linux.

The value proposition is especially relevant if the printers & refills themselves are simple business expenses.

Not saying the company is perfect, but there's a lot of room between the headlines and day-to-day use.

jmugan3• 3 years ago

I bought a Brother laser printer like the internet told me to, and I even paid extra money to get the one that is easy to connect on wifi, but we can't seem to connect the printer to any macs wirelessly. It only connects to the iphones and the ubuntu machine. It just doesn't show up in macs. Anyone know anything about that?

judge2020• 3 years ago

Have you tried manually adding it? When adding a printer you can change the type to 'airprint' which makes it discoverable in the same way that iphones discover printers. You could also use the IP address directly if you must.

anadem• 3 years ago

Make sure it has a fixed IP and doesn't default to using DHCP (not sure this will fix yours, but saw a thread elsewhere where that was the cure)

makeitdouble3• 3 years ago

This is one of those really good "vote with your wallets" situations.

This is a really good situation for actual voting, like actual political action to have regulation, instead of pretend voting.

HP probably doesn't give a damn about the HN crowd, it won't affect their business line in the little, so there's no signaling here.

And assuming Brother gets enough of a loyal following, they can now (probably already are) jack the prices and push the envelope of what's acceptable as business practices, until you'll have to start looking around again at who's left to let you escape predatory practices.

local_crmdgeon3• 3 years ago

Hard disagree. This is how Chrome won the browser wars - people ask their nerdy cousin which browser to use.

The market of HN is small, but the market power is large. Also, I guarantee you people here make large corporate purchases for things like printers, networking equipment - stuff HP cares about.

ryao19• 3 years ago

Brother already started doing that. You could go with Canon instead.

jihadjihad• 3 years ago

The last time printer shenanigans came up on HN, it was related specifically to apparent Brother shenanigans [0]. I was planning on buying a Brother at the time due to similar comments like yours, and still did so. I've been a happy customer since day 1 with the thing, it just works, even on mobile, and it's fast and quiet. I hope Brother can remain sane.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131

dryanau• 3 years ago

Not true for my brother MFC. It mow refuses to accept generic toner.

SeriousM• 3 years ago

So they are true brothers to you?

rwaksmunski• 3 years ago

Pre-chip Brother laser printers can be found for $50-100 on Craigslist. Will last for a decade of home use if not more. Toner can be refilled or bought aftermarket for under $20.

daniel-thompson• 3 years ago

Pre-chip

What's the story with the chip?

jwilk2• 3 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 presumably.

UberFly• 3 years ago

Geeze, what if you accidentally buy a counterfeit ink item off eBay or something?

timbit42• 3 years ago

Buy another one. The printer will still work if you put in a real HP one.

pknopf• 3 years ago

I'll never forget how confused I was when my HP printer kept printing ads, randomly.

Turns out, it was an official practice by HP.

I'll never use any of their products again.

trampi• 3 years ago

That sounds like pure horror to me. I haven't heard of this before. Can you provide a source to back this claim?

fwlr2• 3 years ago

I hadn’t heard of this before either. A quick search (miraculously, Google still sometimes works for me) indicates two separate phenomena: one is that HP did intend to insert printed ads when you use some of their automated print options (https://www.computerworld.com/article/2519039/hp-partners-wi...), and the other is that some HP printers are “web-enabled” in the sense that emails to a certain printer email address will automatically be printed, and the default access settings allow spam ads which then get automatically printed (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Mobile-Printing-Cloud-Printing...)

crazygringo8• 3 years ago

I just want to be clear, because this headline is borderline clickbait.

HP is not bricking the printers. The printers will continue to work if you put the HP cartridges back in.

I'm not condoning HP at all, not in a million years.

But the verb "disable" carries connotations of permanence, so it seems like a disingenuous word choice at best, if it's not outright clickbait. Just so people aren't confused here.

einpoklum4• 3 years ago

HP is not bricking the printers. The printers will continue to work if you put the HP cartridges back in.

That's semi-bricking the printers.

I'm not condoning HP at all, not in a million years.

You're semi-condoning them.

FPGAhacker• 3 years ago

Semi-bricking is like saying someone is semi-pregnant.

Dylan16807• 3 years ago

That's semi-bricking the printers.

I suppose you could say that, but it would mean something quite different from what bricking normally does. And I wouldn't advise it because it sounds like a soft brick rather than "beep boop replace cartridge".

You're semi-condoning them.

No they're not.

Kiro• 3 years ago

You're semi-condoning them.

It's this mentality that makes internet discussions so polarized. If you allow the slightest nuance or point out that something is factually incorrect, and it happens to go against the prevailing narrative, you're accused of being a shill.

riedel• 3 years ago

They are at a minimum destroying value of the ink, as the ink already put into the printer is useless now. At least the running combination is permanently disabled as long as you do not buy something from HP. With printer prices often as low as the ink prices that is a big deal.

At least they should be required to compensate the users.

joebob42• 3 years ago

Thank you, I did not read the article and assumed (based on other comments which are pretty clearly assuming the same) that the title was accurate.

sowbug• 3 years ago

Before the firmware update, the printers were able to print with third-party cartridges. HP disabled that ability. Their customers' printers are now disabled.

bscphil• 3 years ago

By that definition of "disable", HP is disabling their customers' printers regardless of whether they use ink cartridges from another manufacturer. It's clear that that is not the intended sense, however, because the headline says "if they use...".

If that meaning was intended, the headline should read "HP disables the use of third-party ink cartridges on their customers' printers with a firmware update", or something like that.

I agree with OP that as written the headline is misleading.

pessimizer2• 3 years ago

But the verb "disable" carries connotations of permanence

No it doesn't. I can disable the safety catch or disable the alarm just fine without breaking them.

pythonguython• 3 years ago

Before reading the article, I interpreted the headline to mean a permanent disabling. Like disabling a tank. Or a disabled person. Merriam-Webster may agree with you, but I felt the wording was misleading

quitit3• 3 years ago

Thanks for clarifying because that’s the impression i got from the headline too - while the practice is pretty bad, from the comments in here I suspect many others also had the same interpretation.

ranting-moth• 3 years ago

Not quite. They're disabling printers today that were functional yesterday.

There's no HP cartridge to put back in, unless I go and buy one.

The printer is disabled until I give HP money. I call that extortion.

hypercube33• 3 years ago

in a free market shouldn't hp be forced to lower it's prices to compete with 3rd party to a little more than their price since it technically is OEM? I mean like car parts

Aaron2222• 3 years ago

It is clickbait. Nothing borderline about it. Still terrible behaviour from HP, but very unsurprising as opposed to the idea of actually bricking printers.

jmyeet• 3 years ago

This is a lesson in combining poor user behaviour with warped incentives.

Low-end cartridge printers are often sold at cost or a loss. Why? Because they make the money back on cartridges. That's why you see silly things like this because third-party ink and cartridges destroys that business model. But that business model only exists because users make decisions based on sticker price for the printer. Running costs rarely enter the picture.

I saw once a camera store owner said he might sometimes make $1 selling a DSLR and then $10 on a $17 UV filter to go with it. Fast food burger places suffer from this too. McDonalds sells burgers at cost pretty much. They make all their money on the drinks and fries. The so-called "value" in meal deals is pretty much pure profit.

If you print any kind of volume, never ever buy a cartridge inkjet printer. Buy a tank printer instead.

As an aside, this issue isn't as simple as people make it out to be. The issue comes up with (for example) iPhone accessories. You can't justify Apple's prices but it's also not true that all third-party products are produced equal. Anker, in general, makes excellent products but some third-party chargers have killed people [1].

I'm sure most third-party cartridges are fine but that's not necessarily true either. Third-party manufacturers are incentivized to make things as cheap as possible. Will that ink print as well? Will it degrade printer performance over time? Who knows? It's another thing you have to worry about and that's also why these companies don't like third-party products because if poor ink clogs up a printer, who is going to get blamed?

Obviously though it's mostly the greed thing though.

[1] https://www.macgasm.net/news/miscellaneous-news/another-man-...

ravenstine2• 3 years ago

Is there anything HP has made in the last 20 years that was actually good? It seems like their MO in recent history is to make flimsy, garbage products, heavily market them, and build in restrictions to force you to buy more of their crap. They're worse than Canon, since at least Canon still makes fairly decent cameras.

anonymousiam• 3 years ago

HP's actions here remind me of what Sony did in 2010. Sony was sued and eventually had to pay.

Revising/restricting the features of a product after it is sold can have legal consequences.

https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/sony-settles-linux-batt...

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/3/20984028/playstation-supe...

puma_ambit• 3 years ago

Yeah, they’re on my list of brands to not buy any more.

einpoklum4• 3 years ago

Tomorrow's story should be: Customers "disable" their purchasing of HP printers in favor of cheaper, but not as cheap, rivals.

_piif2• 3 years ago

I wish. I will certainly do my part the next time I consider buying a printer but it's been shown again and again that the vast majority of people will always put comfort (and productivity) over ideology. I don't expect any meaningful loss of sales on their part from this.

ryao19• 3 years ago

I decided to stop buying ink cartridges and switched to a monochrome laser printer years ago, but kept the old inkjet printer because it could do scans. I recently had to do a color print. Instead of buying new ink cartridges for my old HP printer, I purchased a new printer from Canon from walmart. Then I gave it away to someone who would use it.

More recently, I decided to buy a color laser printer that can do copying so I do not need the HP anymore and will have the option of doing color prints immediately no matter how many years pass. I brought a Canon. Unlike HP printers, it lets you opt into mechanisms that disable third party toner. I just did some of the first prints with it and it is really nice.

specialist• 3 years ago

Yes and:

Authentic HP ink cartridges now have an expiration date. Even when new in package, sealed, and totally fine.

A friend asked me to fix their printer. Error code was nonsensical. Eventually determined an automatic firmware update invalidated their cartridges. Only clue came from other complaints on reddit. HP had no useful info or troubleshooting advice.

Convinced friend to buy a Brother laser printer.

HP is now evil. Got the Jack Welch treatment. I blame Fiorina, Hurd, Whitman, the board, and all the other stooges, for turning a former tech gem into a punch line.

jasomill• 3 years ago

Even worse, authorized HP retailers sell nearly expired cartridges.

Happened to my mother who bought an HP-branded cartridge from ("shipped and sold by") Amazon, then got a warning message when she installed it a couple months later — it had "expired" a month after purchase.

Fortunately, on her particular printer at least, there was an option to ignore the warning, and the cartridge worked fine after that.

adityamwagh• 3 years ago

How about this - a company that makes printers, but has open sourced their design for cartridges so that other people can make and sell cartridges for those printers? Does something like this exist? Or did HP try their best and bury such companies?

synergy20• 3 years ago

It's like Toyota will disable my car if I did not go to its dealers to do oil changes or regular maintenance.

Make your ink cartridge super high quality with reasonable price, I will buy it. Selling a printer at dirty cheap price and expect to recoup the discount via over priced ink cartridges? your sales and marketing department are doing it wrong, and it's not my problem at all.

Besides, who needs printers these days anymore?

Ryccardo2• 3 years ago

You might be interested to know that Volkswagen's newest CNG cars do exactly that - there's a multi-year countdown configured at the factory, and when it runs down you can't use that fuel anymore, just the gasoline fallback!

That's particularly "fun" here in Italy, where (unlike in the rest of Europe), metal cylinders currently need to be removed from the car and sent to one of two national inspection centers for high pressure testing - which requires them to be empty, of course!

And unlike the oil change reminder, you can't reset it with just a button press, you need a computer interface (for which there's a fair amount of competition, but the cheapest for personal use seems to start at 60 € before shipping and is a "cloud" service)

snvzz2• 3 years ago

Where are the Open Source Hardware printers?

Literally everybody (except printer makers) hates the printer landscape.

All we'd need is to pool money to design a cost-effective open source hardware modular monochrome laser printer with open firmware.

bequanna• 3 years ago

Or buy a Brother printer. They aren’t without sin, but they make quality printers and don’t pull crap like this.

throwaway815233• 3 years ago

Monochrome lasers aren't a big problem if you shop properly. You can do fine with a 1990s era laserjet. The bigger headache is color inkjets, and the ink they consume.

local_crmdgeon3• 3 years ago

A home color inkjet won't do justice basically any photo, to be fair. You'll have a better time buying a B&W document printer then going to your local photo printing shop for high quality work.

Plus, you'll probably meet cool people.

emodendroket11• 3 years ago

Who exactly is looking at the stagnant or shrinking printer market and deciding they want to get into manufacturing them?

ryao19• 3 years ago

You can use 3D printers to print 2D things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuWZWAfBsm8

Some 3D printers are open source.

Unfortunately, I suspect that most would not be happy with the results.

timonoko• 3 years ago

Apropos. I just invented 3D-way to implement color laser printer. Firstly you have enclosed chamber with transparent top. Then you blow some color powder in the chamber. Maybe you apply some electrostatic forces to speed up the process. When the dust has finally settled on the paper, you just zap it with laser. The melted powder adheres to the paper at appropriate points. You suck the loose powder back to its container and repeat the process with next color.

This is clearly more economical construction compared to Xerox-style laser printer. It collects the powder firstly on separate surface, heats that and then presses adhered shit to the paper.

liendolucas2• 3 years ago

Doesn't this classify as spyware/malware? Who would think a company would go that far to lock-in customers in such a miserable way? I'm being naive but let's hope others do not get creative and follow these outrageous practices.

FaridIO• 3 years ago

I think Hacker News has enough tech-savvy people who are asked for advice by friends and family to make a dent. Let's make companies regret decisions like this.

PopePompus2• 3 years ago

Has there ever been another company that declined as much from its glory days as HP? During the second half of the 20th century HP was a fabled brand. They made beautiful equipment for which there was often no comparable quality alternative in the world. The pocket calculators they built in the 1980s are still sought-after, not just as collectables but also as daily drivers. They built computers during that era, but they we never a "player" in that industry.

Then they shifted their focus to computers and began their long decent into the crappy husk of a company that they are today. The engineers who work there should be ashamed when they implement malware like this printer ink scam.

pulvinar• 3 years ago

Plenty of other companies have declined, or just changed as the people composing them changed. But for HP, yeah, I miss their heyday too. I consider their spinoff Agilent to be the "real" HP now.

scarface745• 3 years ago

They built computers during that era, but they we never a "player" in that industry.

HP was definitely a player in the PC industry and has been the number one manufacturer at different times..

https://statisticsanddata.org/data/best-selling-computer-bra...

PopePompus2• 3 years ago

Yes, but I would claim that was when they started going to pot. LONG before the PC era, HP made its own line of computers, which were seldom seen outside of labs, and even labs were much more apt to have a PDP-8 or PDP-11. Their move into commodity computers and peripherals moved them from a situation where they were building the highest quality products available, into one where they had no "moat". After all, who would buy a spectacularly well built PC early in the PC era? After two years you would have wanted to throw it out regardless of how solidly it was built, because back then PCs doubled in performance nearly every year.

znpy3• 3 years ago

I would blame it a bit on standardisation… not too much, but when you drop the development of your own cpu, your own operating systems, your own hardware… you’re an oem like the others.

tonyedgecombe2• 3 years ago

I often wonder whether companies like HP gave up too easily, why did they let Microsoft and Intel walk all over them.

denton-scratch3• 3 years ago

Do people still buy HP inkjets? They've been doing this kind of thing for a decade, I'd have thought they should have seen their customerbase wither away by now.

whoopdedo• 3 years ago

Name recognition is a hell of a drug.

classified• 3 years ago

What they've managed to achieve with this is that I'll never buy an HP printer ever again.

crest• 3 years ago

Sometimes you have to lead them by the neck. Wipe out the company and lock up those responsible for a few decades of real labor.

jimbobimbo• 3 years ago

I'm glad they are still asking for permission to upgrade the firmware. I was successful at declining that for a year or so already.

arlattimore• 3 years ago

If you're going to use corporate fines, they'll need to be per instance and massive or large corporations like HP will just pay the fine and keep doing it.

bediger4000• 3 years ago

Kyocera seems to make decent laser jets. I bought a kyocera P2235dw a while back, and it was easy to get CUPS on linux and MacOS to recognize it and use it. Kyocera makes a PPD file for linux available. My P2235dw is a bit noisier than some, but it's not bad.

neuralRiot• 3 years ago

This is from 2020

https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-prin...

newmanah223• 3 years ago

You could just not buy an HP printer.

I use older Brother laserjet printers that I bought secondhand. A pack of 2 off-brand toner cartridges are about $20 on ebay.

Enough people are dumb enough to overpay for ink that HP stays in business. Jailing a CEO won't cure stupidity.

RealityVoid2• 3 years ago

Louis Rossman had a video about exactly this kind of attitude, and he persuaded me that it's not a good one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN44n_F_CPo

Please do watch it.

His point is that this kind of horrible kind of practices corrupt and spread through industries so they need to be dealt with ASAP if you want to prevent it becoming standard.

Besides, you can't be savvy about all fields. Sure, you know about printers, but how many other facets of life you're NOT familiar with and you're duped in making choices that disadvantages you.

ryao19• 3 years ago

Louis Rossman has a business interest to say that. Interestingly, if you try asking him to fix a Dell laptop that was a gift from a deceased relative, he will refuse, no matter how much you are willing to pay. I know this from experience.

marcodiego• 3 years ago

FTDI/Microsoft did something similar to counter "counterfeit" FTDI chips[1]. I remember at least one person who bricked and arduino because of it. I instructed everyone I knew who used no-brand arduinos give them away for their colleagues who use linux.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/windo...

psyfi• 3 years ago

Boycott HP

g42gregory• 3 years ago

Good to know. No HP for me, when I will buy a replacement printer.

29athrowaway• 3 years ago

Because printers are sold at a loss.

fwlr2• 3 years ago

Jailbreaking and hardware-hacking printers is starting to sound like it could be a whole lot of fun, actually

chrisweekly• 3 years ago

I got tired of the user-hostile shenanigans, bad software, low-quality output, and high TCO (5 or 6 HP or Canon devices over the years), finally came to my senses and bought a Brother. It "Just Works", is fast and quiet and reliable, does exactly what it's supposed to, and is in such stark contrast to the typically terrible printer UX it's almost funny.

ryao19• 3 years ago

Could someone get the EU to mandate a standard interchangeable ink cartridge format to make this nonsense go away?

It would be fascinating to watch how HP responds.

throw7• 3 years ago

"Using a non AT&T phone is not allowed in order to maintain the integrity of our phone system and to protect our intellectual property."

I was looking at printers a year or two ago and noticed that HP's were cheaper, but it was clear from the packaging they were selling "internet" connected printers & ink subscriptions. Those were immediate red flags to me.

aio2• 3 years ago

well, this is direction the world is heading in

mkl95• 3 years ago

My HP printer was about as expensive as a couple of cartridges. They are the McDonalds of printers.

ajsnigrutin• 3 years ago

Can't you just return it? It worked until the upgrade, then it didn't, the update took away a functionality you bought it for, so you can either request a downgrade to a working firmware or a refund?

It would be an interesting case for courts indeed and solve a lot of future problems for consumers.

dspillett2• 3 years ago

to reduce the risk of malware attacks

What business does an ink cartridge have containing any significant code that could act as malware? What sort of imbecilic or evil (or both) personage designs a system that makes this even remotely possible and then sells it to the general public?

Of course there is no answer to that because it isn't a real reason, it is crap regurgitated by a PR drone who knows next to nothing about tech details and has been told to drop the phrase in to make it look like the company is defending their customers from something rather than being a something their customers need defending from…

(or worse, the PR person knows a bit about tech, so knows the malware angle is complete bunkum, and was actively lying.)

koiz• 3 years ago

great job hp, keep annoying customers that will work!

human• 3 years ago

I know this has been asked a million times but when are we going to get a great printer company? Right now we have to settle for the least bad manufacturer.

emodendroket11• 3 years ago

My guess is they're trying to squeeze more revenue because fewer people are buying and regularly using printers.

nkrisc• 3 years ago

I really do think there needs to be stricter regulations about how products like these can be advertised. Do you really "own" the printer if the manufacturer can decide what ink you're allowed to put in it after you've already paid for it? It really seems disingenuous to market these prints as "purchases" or something that you "buy" like you would a loaf of bread.

It's not quite "renting", but it's not really "owning" either because when you "buy" it, it's not just yours, but you actually share some degree of ownership of it with the manufacturer.

masswerk• 3 years ago

the company also blocks the use of rival cartridges in order to “maintain the integrity of our printing systems, and protect our intellectual property”.

One might have thought that the basic IP on ink expired somewhen in the 12th century.

sn_master• 3 years ago

Why is there CODE running inside of an ink cartridge in the first place?!?! Let alone code that's sophisticated enough that "cheaper rivals" can't just copy it. What is going on in this world?

j45• 3 years ago

Seems like there’s one reason to disable HP from one’s life - you never really own what hardware you buy from them.

If inkjet printer “technology” hasn’t evolved in 25 years enough to not have to worry as much about third party ink, they probably aren’t competent at printers.

Or perhaps the corollary that inkjet ink is among the, if not most expensive retail substance per ml/oz.

yieldcrv• 3 years ago

This is an antitrust violation right? An anticompetitive practice

dramm• 3 years ago

I stopped buying HP anything. And startups and others I work with I encourage to purchase Brother laser printers. HP is dead to me. Not only this crap, but Brother makes more reliable and better priced/cost of ownership printers.

cgtyoder• 3 years ago

How is this news? HP has been doing this for a long time.

anbeliever• 3 years ago

My suggestion is to announce a hackathon with sweat amount and brainstorm ideas on how to make money with the current state. Disabling printers is not a smart move, this will force people to look for workarounds.

ksec3• 3 years ago

I wonder if there is anything we can further innovate on? Something that is as good as Colour Laser but much cheaper.

tonyedgecombe2• 3 years ago

Just don't print stuff. I hardly ever use my printer.

I say this as someone who has spent most of my career working on printing related software.

ksec3• 3 years ago

I cant. Kid's education and Work related things still requires printing. And actually I have grown much more fond of printing things out in paper rather than keeping it digital as I age. I still print about 10-20 page a month.

anshumankmr• 3 years ago

Serious question, would re-filling an original HP cartridge do the trick? I am considering buying a printer myself and the two most popular ones seem to be Brother and HP. I have however read Brother is doing similar tactics.

alfanick• 3 years ago

Do you actually own a printer? Since 10+ years I print stuff either at work or in hotel. If it's pictures, I print them in some printing company with some nice ICC profile I got from them.

Owning a printer in XXI century is waste of time.

MetaApe• 3 years ago

Cost of a new printer $100, cost of 2 HP cartridges… $85

So it’s easy, just buy a new printer one from a non-criminal company.

pauby• 3 years ago

If people stop buying these printers, then you're voting with your wallet. But people won't. They continue to buy these printers and HP will continue to do this as their sales are telling them it's good.

I accept there is more to this than that, but it's the first step.

fmajid• 3 years ago

I believe this is explicitly illegal in France under the country’s environment and e-waste law. Apple got in trouble because batterygate was interpreted as planned obsolescence, which is forbidden.

costanzaDynasty• 3 years ago

On one hand you want consumers and a jury to believe that you have no liability when bad actors use your bad drivers to run malicious code on their machines while at the same time doing basically the same thing to your own customers.

rcarmo• 3 years ago

This is one of the reasons I’ve been meaning to switch to a Brother printer for a while - just waiting for my current HP all-in-one to die (I need a scanner, and until a few years ago also needed a fax).

Fortunately we don’t print that much stuff anymore, even with kids’ assignments.

HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

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