Pay no attention to the USB port behind the “no USB” sticker

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/4/23820710/pay-no-attention-to-the-usb-port-behind-the-no-usb-sticker

556 315 3 years ago

Their mistake was to make the sticker distinguishable from the background plastic. Inquisitive people will always remove the sticker to reveal the tempting secrets behind.

missblit• 3 years ago

I just remove stickers because I hate all manner of visual distractions. If I could find a way to remove etched in / painted on logos from from computer hardware I'd do that too.

Got a (pretty good) apron from William Sonoma but it had the logo sewed on with a huge patch, had to painstakingly unstitch it to get a pretty apron without any branding emblazoned across the front.

JohnFen• 3 years ago

I thought that I was the only weirdo that did this sort of thing, but I'm reassured to find a kindred spirit.

wildzzz• 3 years ago

It's been awhile but I've always taken the logos off the front of the optical drives in my desktop builds. Takes like three wipes with some acetone and now you have a very clean look. Very few companies are willing to spend money on robust branding for whitebox goods so it's often very easy to remove logos from stuff like conference swag.

I bought a pencil case for work off Amazon and it had a bright red patch with the company name on it, just some sort of absolute nonsense combination of consonants and vowels. One minute with an xacto blade cut the stitches and I was left with an acceptable quality pencil case.

jacquesm3• 3 years ago

My stitch cutter is my favorite tool. I got mine from a surgeon in the hospital, before that I used one that is used for sewing, but the big one is a lot quicker.

catchnear43214• 3 years ago

the little arrow on the bottom left also looks strikingly like a “peel here” indicator.

pretty easy to peel, too, given how much larger the sticker is from the little port extrusion thing.

for that matter, it isn’t even centered.

assuming it would even remain stuck given how little it would be sticking to.

almost like someone placed a sticker over a usb port.

would someone do that?

krackers• 3 years ago

Even with the sticker, there's also a USB logo visible. It seems like this is not HP trying to trick the user into using wifi by hiding usb, but just letting them know that this thing supports wifi.

Marsymars3• 3 years ago

My cable modem has a sticker that looks very much like the surrounding plastic. I’d never have noticed if reviews hadn’t pointed it out. Apparently hides three extra ethernet ports for situations with multiple static IPs or with link aggregation. (Things that aren’t needed for the typical residential modem user.)

asynchronous• 3 years ago

Obligatory “screw HP”

tenebrisalietum• 3 years ago

This reminded me of the following (from 2010):

https://www.engadget.com/2010-11-17-windows-phone-7s-microsd....

A removeable SD card you're ... not supposed to remove.

userbinator6• 3 years ago

That article reads painfully like a "how can we screw over our customers" discussion was exposed.

On a more positive note, it used to be somewhat common for cheap no-name Android phones, mainly based on Mediatek SoCs, to boot from an internal removable microSD card, along with the "official" external removable one next to the then-standard removable battery and dual SIM slots. They disappeared rather quickly once eMMC became the norm, likely in a next revision of a reference design.

dismalpedigree2• 3 years ago

I bought a NAS a fee years back. Was a fully functional computer complete with 4x usb, hdmi, and Ethernet. Only the ethernet was exposed until you cut the case away. Cut the case, installed truenas, never looked back.

SturgeonsLaw• 3 years ago

Mugging pensioners is a line of work that people get into when they're too ethical for the printer industry.

HP is one of the worst offenders, but the others aren't much better.

I bought a dirt cheap (~$100 AUD) Fuji Xerox CP105b colour laser printer about 10 years ago and it still works fine. No crapware in the drivers, no cartridge lockouts, no bullshit. Super crisp print jobs. I fear that when it breaks, I won't find another deal like that.

dylan6044• 3 years ago

okay, i LOL on that one. so tell us how you really feel about the printer industry.

greenyoda• 3 years ago

I bought a cheap Brother laser printer 20 years ago, and it works great today. Just plug in the USB cable, and it works on a modern machine with no extra drivers or software. (It's old enough that it still also has a parallel port on it.)

I recently replaced the toner and drum with third-party ones, and they work fine - no vendor lock-in.

cam_l• 3 years ago

I got to the point where I actually buy brother ink for my old brother printers, because it is not that expensive and I really don't want them to go out of business.

crooked-v• 3 years ago

Sadly, apparently new Brother printers have moved to the crapware model.

sundvor4• 3 years ago

Searched for a Brother comment to reply to - found it, thanks! :-)

I don't do a lot of printing, but when I do it's for a real need and I just want it to work. So I got another HL-L2375DW (mono full duplex laser) last year to replace my first which I gave to my ex after separation/divorce - a perfect little unit, not a trace of HP-level BS anywhere to be found. It goes to sleep with minimal power use, and wakes up when needed, even weeks or months between each use - can print straight from my Samsung phone with no extra driver install needed, as well as from PC naturally. I've just set it up on the Wifi, but it also has a network port + USB. Perfect.

It was only around 200 AUD; mind you the included toner wasn't the biggest but I only need it for occasional use so it's still going strong. I'll probably get their big drum when it eventually runs out (that's what I did with my 1st, ex printed a lot more than I) and whilst I could go 3rd party I'll just buy theirs anyway to support them in a small way.

https://www.brother.com.au/en/products/all-printers/printers...

judge20202• 3 years ago

Not having AirPrint for mobile devices is a loss.

euroderf• 3 years ago

Another happy Brother user here. What kind of world is it where H-P is even remotely competitive with them ?

jacquesm3• 3 years ago

I thought they went to big pharma to figure out new ways to milk old medicine for vast profits. Think about it: how many drugs sell for prices substantially below the price of printer ink by weight, by volume and by just about every other parameter you might want to use, including manufacturing costs.

saratogacx2• 3 years ago

I got a Samsung clp-320 color laser printer about a decade ago for $150 and, same as you, it's given me no issues both USB and network (local only). It even works from phones on my wifi which is nice.

philjohn• 3 years ago

Xerox is the way to go - I got a VersaLink c405 at the start of the pandemic - it's not cheap, but no rubbish in the drivers, accepts third party toner without complaint and most parts are serviceable.

cdchn5• 3 years ago

What is it about printers where all the makers exhibit the most egregious dark patterns, the flakiest products, and the worst software design in the drivers, out of any tech product? Is the toner in the air giving them all brain rot?

hobotime• 3 years ago

HP sucks, but that sticker has instructions on where to start to peal it away.

They're obviously trying to get the whole family to wirelessly print with all their devices via WiFi to use up ink. And not just connected to dad's boring household accounting desktop.

sliken4• 3 years ago

Yes, and get the printer on the network where it can download new DRM behaviors to screw the users out of more ink. So far they retroactively added banning 3rd party ink, disabling ink once it gets too old, and of course not letting you print black if one of the other colors is out.

quickthrower25• 3 years ago

Next step: SaaS subscription or 60 second pause before printing

themindfield• 3 years ago

Is anyone familiar with a solid open source printer hardware project?

Given all of the issues with printers over the years (driver compatibility, ink cartridge drm, things like the above post), I’m curious if there is a reason open source printer hardware is not more common.

My assumption would be the complexity of the print mechanism / tolerances / balancing.

askvictor• 3 years ago

Printing is hard. Printing fast is harder. The main reason printers still suck, 40-odd years later, is because it's really hard, at least in the consumer market, where you don't expect regular service, and there's a race to the bottom in terms of price.

mdaniel• 3 years ago

this question comes up on a lot of the "printer rage" threads <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...> and my recollection of the majority of the substantial discussions seem to imply that there are patents which are a major obstacle to any such effort, above and beyond the general "hardware development is its own specialization" problem

Now, what I don't know (and don't recall seeing) is whether that's true of every jurisdiction or if it's just a US-centric problem and the EU could have their revenge by having an open printer that US consumers couldn't buy :-/

0cf8612b2e1e• 3 years ago

I thought patents were 20 years. At the time, in the early 2000s, I thought the HP Laserjet 4000 was a tank. Is there any reason someone would be prevented from replicating a circa 2003 model printer?

userbinator6• 3 years ago

There are plenty of open-source 3D printers but doesn't seem to be any 2D ones.

That said, I think open-source firmware for existing 2D printers would be a better idea, perhaps with a controller board to retrofit into existing mechanisms since I suspect they've heavily used crypto to lock out alternative firmware. Driving the two axes is relatively simple, but RE'ing printhead signals and driving those are probably going to be the most difficult part.

NortySpock• 3 years ago

I assume the print-head and paper-feeding are the hardest parts, but I would absolutely be interested in exploring how to liberate 2D printing into an open-source ecosystem just as 3D printing has an ecosystem...

exmadscientist2• 3 years ago

In general the hardware on a 2D printer is simply more difficult than most or all of the OSHW stuff.

Paper handling is hell (there's a great magazine article from a few years back on the Xerox division who handles this... they're wizards, the lot of them). Hardware, software, and environment dependent.

Everything needs to be RIPped but that's the sort of thing which software is really good at and which is well suited to open source.

For an inkjet driving the nozzles is the nasty bit. First figure out which ones to fire when, then you have to actually do it. I'm told by those in the know that this really just can't be done well enough in software, you need the timing control of FPGA/ASIC solutions. So, very doable, but hard.

Laser printers have difficult drum and transfer belt issues but solutions are mostly copyable from existing products. Driving the laser diode itself is pretty easy (admittedly I've worked with laser guys, but still). The hard bit is pointing the laser in the right direction, with either spinny prisms or galvos. Or you could forgo the laser in favor of an LED array but I don't think anyone (Oki?) ever got great results out of that. Overall a B&W laser is probably the easiest thing to start with.

That all said, everyone knows China's reputation in the hardware space: clone, clone, clone. And yet, how many Chinese printers do you come across? There's probably a reason for that. It sure isn't lack of skill.

It's probably just that printers are awful.

noAnswer2• 3 years ago

My personal take is: Why bother?! It is a dying marked. Most private people don't need a printer. Just go to a convenient store, for that one print every other year. And for the high volume business side there are still good enough commercial options.

p1mrx• 3 years ago

A monochrome laser printer is useful for USPS shipping, because they pick up at the mailbox. I also print icons for confusing switches around the house (light / fan / garbage disposal) and attach them with clear tape. I recently made a "This Hyundai vehicle is equipped with a push-button ignition" window label to deter TikTok thieves.

Inkjets are junk, because the ink dries up within a year. I'm still on my original laser toner from 2007.

snvzz2• 3 years ago

I am always sure to mention this whenever there's talk about printers.

We _need_ an open source printer. Ideally a monochrome laser with an automatic paper feeder.

For most, it would be the only printer in consideration when in the market for a printer. This is true even if the specs were just at the level of early 90s printers.

Even if buying something else, the mere existence of this printer would keep printer brands honest. They get to be scummy because they know we have no alternative.

Sophira2• 3 years ago

The fact that there are (formerly) "secret agreement[s] with governments to ensure that the output of those printers is forensically traceable" in the form of the Machine Identification Code[0] suggests that it could potentially be difficult for an open-source 2D printer to gain traction.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code#Hi...

smegger001• 3 years ago

I mean you would think printers would be THE opensource hardware project as printer hate has been a ongoing issue for as long as people have been attaching them to computers. I mean a shitty closed source printer driver is what acted as the impetus for Richard Stallman to start GNU and peicemeal trying to replace the Unix. it would seem like printing would be the prime target for opensource.

leejo• 3 years ago

My assumption would be the complexity of the print mechanism / tolerances / balancing.

I once sat on a chairlift with a lawyer who had represented one of the big printer companies and he explained that printers are the perfect storm of: hardware, software, firmware, chemistry, physics, fluid dynamics, paper science, and (yes) lawyers.

The larger companies have put billions into R&D, hence them continuing to pull the crap we see every other month on HN.

thih9• 3 years ago

I don’t care about that R&D.

I seriously doubt that R&D was about long term cost efficient reliability in a user friendly context - because we’re mostly seeing the opposite.

I print two b&w pages per month, for now I’m another happy user of a brother laser printer.

Ekaros2• 3 years ago

I would also venture to say cost. Printers use pretty specific parts and making enough generic versions with all tooling would likely mean unit price is closes to the more expensive side. And then you might as well get one from that price range.

They are complex machines with complex parts. And to have those priced sensibly needs volume. Like how many injection moulds would you need? And then you would have one factory equipped.

__jonas• 3 years ago

But the sticker has an icon in the lower left corner that suggests it should be pulled off?

Here is a reply from the Mastodon thread that seems more plausible:

@steeph @netspooky They're not hiding it, they're getting you to set up the printer over wifi, and only use the USB port after that. It seems if you use the USB port straight away it'll only print up to 20 pages then stop. They do this to get you to opt into hp+ and lock the printer in to use official toner. That's why the printer is so cheap

greazy• 3 years ago

That's even worse. Wow.

circuit10• 3 years ago

I have a similar printer and I think it was just for setup, I remember it saying you can use USB after the initial setup but you need to keep it connected to WiFi as well or something

userbinator6• 3 years ago

The phrase "opt into" implies there's a choice, but the rest of that paragraph implies there isn't.

edvinbesic• 3 years ago

Mandatory opt-in.

wolrah• 3 years ago

The choice is when you buy it. The models with "e" at the end are less expensive, sometimes significantly so, than their hardware-identical non-e counterparts, but they are locked in to the HP+ service in firmware.

As far as I can tell there is no option to "buy out" an e model to remove the subscription requirement. Given HP's history I suspect once this annoys the wrong person it'll turn out to be pretty trivial to break, but for now if you feel the need to purchase a new HP product you should definitely avoid the ones with an e in the model number.

AFAIK Brother hasn't tried anything like this (yet?) and they're cheap so if they fit your needs I recommend them.

Michelangelo11• 3 years ago

"Acquiesce to"

Sophira2• 3 years ago

And for those who haven't heard about HP+, The Verge did a piece on that too: https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/25/23736811/hp-plus-printer-...

larschdk• 3 years ago

I agree. I get the impression that the intended message is "USB not necessary" rather than "unavailable". I can imagine that many users seeing the USB port would think that it is required (since it was on older printers), not understanding that WiFi-only is an option.

oh_sigh• 3 years ago

Maybe the sticker is just there for people who might want to use wifi (ie most) but don't know it is an option

dylan6044• 3 years ago

Isn't that one of the primary selling points they print on the boxes and plaster on the websites?

dylan6044• 3 years ago

I'm guessing the removal of the sticker voids some warranty, or violates some ToC/EULA/etc. It also wouldn't surprise me if some court agreed.

sliken4• 3 years ago

Friends don't let friend buy HP printers. My pick so far is a cheap (under $200) brother lasers for home use.

foobarian• 3 years ago

Do you have a recommendation for color photo printers? For when grandma is visiting and so on?

squarefoot• 3 years ago

Although Epson doesn't quite have a stellar reputation wrt user friendliness, my WP4515 has worked great for like 7-8 years so far. It's also perfectly supported by Linux. Not sure if the above can be still relevant as that model has been superseded by newer ones.

graton3• 3 years ago

Print them at your local pharmacy or somewhere else that will do color photo prints. Not worth the hassle, in my opinion, to have a color printer (ink or laser).

FireBeyond• 3 years ago

Canon. A whole range from 'enthusiast' to 'professional' (I love my Image Pro 1000, but I make a sideline hustle from photography - it's entirely overkill for most - but there are more budget friendly models).

xeromal2• 3 years ago

Brother printers have went this way too. Mine incessantly complains about low toner even when I use brand new ones because they aren't brother branded.

m4633• 3 years ago

i have a brother toner cartridge and got low toner messages. I have not even printed 250 pages.

I was thinking maybe I moved the printer and it is not level?

noAnswer2• 3 years ago

1. Make sure that the printer is on while changing the toner or it will not know that a change was done.

2. Speaking from experience doing support for a lot of them, brother* printers are notorious for not realizing the toner (even with originals) was changed. There are ways to reset the counter though(Holding two buttons while powering on). It's usually mentioned in the manual.

* It's the only brand I know with that problem.

codemiscreant2• 3 years ago

After a recent firmware update my Brother inkjet refuses to print b&w (yes it has a full black cartridge and this was never a problem previously) because one of the color inks is empty. Brother the Good is a thing of the past.

ksherlock• 3 years ago

There's a little window on the side of the toner. Cover it with some black tape.

graton3• 3 years ago

Same for a Brother black-and-white laser. Not a Brother ink printer. Not a Brother color laser printer. A Brother black-and-white laser.

Now maybe things have changed. But I bought my Brother MFC-8890DW back in April of 2011. It is still going strong. In that time period I have replaced the toner once. But I have only printed 3,768 pages in that time. So 314 pages per year.

It is the best type of printer for my use case which is infrequent printing. Ink type printers aren't the best options if you might have 90+ days between printing jobs. I also really like having the scanning and photo copying features that mine has. And the Ethernet connection makes it so anyone in the house can easily print.

cdchn5• 3 years ago

There appears to be a thriving secondary market for pre-enshittification Brother laser printers. I wonder if anybody maintains a list of the "good models?"

sliken4• 3 years ago

I've not heard of post enshitification brother lasers. Link? Or maybe just an overview?

turok• 3 years ago

The Brother grey box is exactly what a printer needs to be, totally anonymous until it is needed circa 3 times a year and then just works.

charonn0• 3 years ago

Is this just a tweet or something? Or am I missing the associated article?

phyzome2• 3 years ago

It's a toot on Mastodon, with no commentary. Here's the actual link including replies, which is what should have been linked to instead: https://haunted.computer/@netspooky/110832978569741892

croes• 3 years ago

I think parent wants to know why the link to TheVerge instead of a direct link to Mastodon.

deepsun2• 3 years ago

It's a mast.

Or don.

baz00• 3 years ago

HP are scum but I have to say the most reliable laser I've had is an HP LaserJet Pro M148 and it wasn't expensive. No jams, everything works, no crapware. Done 7000 sheets on it. The only thing you have to do is ignore the low toner warning as it'll do a few hundred pages after that kicks off.

This is a vast contrast to the cheap inkjet I got from them before which was drop kicked all the way to the trash after it died replacing the first cartridge.

I had a Brother laser before them and the thing used to jam all the time and ate drums.

LeoPanthera3• 3 years ago

Costco requires that all HP printers they sell are fully functional even if you don't subscribe to any of HP's services.

That's why the Costco HP printers are often models exclusive to Costco.

(They require a similar thing of Sony televisions, which is why Sony TVs have slightly different model numbers at Costco.)

jwells892• 3 years ago

Out of curiosity, do you happen to know the differences for the Costco Sony TVs?

It may have changed recently but last I knew Sony TVs had few if any ties to Sony services, come loaded with basically unchanged Google TV, and are perfectly happy to be used as fully offline "dumb" TVs. If that holds true for current Sony TVs it's hard to imagine what would be different in Costco versions.

LeoPanthera3• 3 years ago

Currently, I'm not convinced there is a difference. There used to be, in that some Sony TVs would require an out-of-the-box firmware update in order to enable all features, but the Costco models didn't.

But I don't think that's true with the current generation.

reaperducer5• 3 years ago

Out of curiosity, do you happen to know the differences for the Costco Sony TVs?

On a related note, the LG TV I bought at Fry's Electronics was a Fry's-only model.

Investigating it, I found out it was actually a Brazilian model with the built-in DVR disabled for the American market.

I thought about trying to hack it to enable the DVR, but realized it would have to connect to the internet to retrieve program information, and there's no way I'm going to let my TV connect to the internet.

(And before a bunch of HN smarty pantses tell me it will just latch onto a neighbor's wifi, that's not possible in my building, as we're all on the same building-wide VLAN, and you have to register a new device's MAC address in the portal to allow it in. I'm also too high up to pick up any street-level wifi.)

walrus01• 3 years ago

Just don't ever give your tv the wifi password. I have a thousand times more confidence at microsoft will keep the xbox operating system up to date and reasonably secure (yes, it has ads on the homescreen) than I do that any smart tv vendor will still support their crap OS in 5, 7, 10 years from now.

Use an xbox or a PS5 to drive the TV and run the apps on that.

Marsymars3• 3 years ago

I don’t think there’s any difference currently. I have a one-generation old Sony TV that I bought from Costco in Canada, and it’s the same model as is sold in Canada outside of Costco.

m4633• 3 years ago

Too bad the treadmill I bought at costco was crippled unless you hooked it to the internet.

you can do:

- start setup - continue without wifi - manual start

then you can manually press all the buttons (speed, incline, etc)

but no treadmill programs.

xattt• 3 years ago

Since you bought it at Costco, you would have been able to take advantage of their satisfaction guarantee.

photonerd• 3 years ago

I get what you mean, but that’s not crippled. The functionality is there. Some convenience features were not.

Annoying? Yes. Limited? Yes. Crippled? No.

frognumber• 3 years ago

I recommend returns.

If cloud-only things have higher return rates, that will drive up costs far more than cloud-only returns.

wpietri4• 3 years ago

It's wild to me that America's most functional consumer regulator might be a private company.

yjftsjthsd-h• 3 years ago

I mean, it's on-brand; if the USA has bad things from too much privatization, it's poetic for the solution to be more privatization.

ipaddr2• 3 years ago

It's a co-op not a private business

eru27• 3 years ago

Isn't that how market economies are supposed to work?

By default, consumers are their own best regulator. You buy only the bread that tastes good, and that shoes that fit, so the market will provide, etc.

It's a small step from there, to outsourcing part of that to a middle men like Costco. Costco benefits from their reputation with customers they got from those efforts.

Similar for product reviews on independent websites or magazines or even on Amazon.

It's only in exceptional circumstances that 'consumer regulators' can not be private entities.

And much of the time, we get lots of government regulation that could be done by private entities just fine or better. But to be honest, lots of that regulation is still 'good enough', so it doesn't do that much harm. Two examples to illustrate:

Germans like to eat raw minced pork. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett So there are rules in Germany that all pork sold has to be save to eat raw. In most other countries, people don't share that peculiar preference, so the government regulations on pork are less strict.

I hold that even in the absence of specific regulation, the German market would provide Germans with pork that's safe to eat raw. Companies would just put a little sticker on their meat that tells you, that it's safe to eat (and normal existing rules about truth in advertising would make sure the sticker is trustworthy).

The second example: thanks to harmonised EU rules you can put palm oil in your chocolate without loudly declaring it and still call it chocolate on the packaging. (You just have to mention the palm oil in the fine-print list of ingredients.) By and large, German customers don't like palm oil in their chocolate. So German supermarkets mostly only carry 'proper' chocolate. So we private companies regulating the German chocolate market, to give consumers what they want.

jhart99• 3 years ago

Costco has incredible leverage over their suppliers. I worked for a supplier previously and they forced changes to our packaging including labels, cases, and pallets to make things easier for them. I have no doubt that Costco could give HP or Sony an ultimatum like this to dictate functionality or just not carry their brand.

neilv• 3 years ago

If Costco would ban all electronics products that phone home, gratuitously depend on servers (which is now most IoT products), and/or spy on the user... I might have to become a lifetime citizen of Costco.

trurl• 3 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdNmOOq6T8Y

tjohns• 3 years ago

This isn't a Costco-specific thing.

HP printers come in an "e" model, which requires an Instant Ink subscription (but is cheaper - effectively subsidized by the subscription), and a non-"e" model that is unlocked (but costs more). Just don't buy the "e" models if you're shopping elsewhere.

In general, the reason Costco sells electronics with different model numbers is so that you can't price match them to/from other retailers. Sometimes a few minor features get removed as well to lower the overall cost.

ShadowBanThis013• 3 years ago

"the reason Costco sells electronics with different model numbers is so that you can't price match them to/from other retailers"

Absolutely, although it's not clear who the perpetrator is. I suspect it's the manufacturer, not Costco.

the_mitsuhiko• 3 years ago

I do not believe this to be correct. I think that the e model just comes with subscription ink instead of regular ink.

OGWhales• 3 years ago

In general, the reason Costco sells electronics with different model numbers is so that you can't price match them to/from other retailers.

Costco doesn’t offer price matching.

somehnguy• 3 years ago

Just don't buy the "e" models if you're shopping elsewhere

Ah yes, “just” add another highly specific thing to your memory so that sometime unpredictable in a next x years you don’t get completely screwed by the giant corp. And for all those people who don’t spend their days on a computer reading HN, sucks to be you, HP got ya.

The sarcasm in this comment isn’t directed at you (thanks for sharing the ‘e’ tidbit) - I’m just so so tired of giant corps actively trying to screw the consumer at every possible turn. It makes shopping for anything besides the absolute basics exhausting.

userbinator6• 3 years ago

I wonder if it's possible to cross-flash firmware to unlock other models. I highly doubt HP is spending the money to create an entire new different set of models just for Costco.

ShadowBanThis013• 3 years ago

It's most likely not so consumer-friendly.

This kind of bullshit has gone on for years, notably in the mattress industry. Mattress companies are famous for simply slapping different model numbers on the same mattresses sold to each retailer, to undermine price guarantees.

No doubt HP, Sony, and who knows who else pulls the same shit with merchandise sold to Costco.

benj1112• 3 years ago

Is this a global thing or US only?

I'm actually quite impressed with this. It's a shame all stores don't do this.

It's also a shame I don't have a Costco reasonably near me.

pasc1878• 3 years ago

I thought all major shops got differently numbered models from major suppliers. This allows the shop to say it is a unique model only available from them.

Well at least in the UK

ralphc• 3 years ago

I thought it was so a store could say they'll match any competitor's price on the same model, only to find that store is the only one to carry that model number.

zapkyeskrill• 3 years ago

Think of the children! There are hordes of bad men out there printing illegal material, sharing it hand to hand, and doing unimaginable things with it. It must be stopped!

biugbkifcjk• 3 years ago

I bought one of these because it was like $30 and needed it to print off some stuff with color. I had immediately taken the sticker off even realizing until after the fact that they try and limit it to WiFi only. It worked immediately plugging it in to USB on my Linux laptop, so yea.. I guess its only there for people that don't know better?

mbreese2• 3 years ago

plugging it in to USB on my Linux laptop

I think this is the key part... I haven't installed a printer driver from the manufacturer in years. Using CUPS through my Mac or Linux machines "just works". The crazy bloatware drivers are almost always associated with Windows, so if you're using Linux or a Mac, there isn't much of a risk here, is there? Linux even more so...

quickthrower25• 3 years ago

Didn’t a closed and unfixable printer driver kick off the free software revolution?

userbinator6• 3 years ago

I still wish printers continued to have parallel ports and something relatively standard and simple like ASCII+ESC/P2 compatibility. Instead we got a morass of complexity with proprietary protocols over USB and extremely user-hostile printer firmware.

judge20202• 3 years ago

Disregarding the anti-consumer part of this, HP instant ink is a pretty good deal. The 910 3-pack on Best Buy is $36 for me, and claims a 315 page yield. Instant ink, on the other hand, offers 100 pages for $6/month, making it about $20 to achieve the same yield of pages.

And with the rise of digital records, most people could probably live on the $1/month plan where you get 10 pages and can rollover up to 30 pages with every extra 10 pages costing $1 when you need it. It'd take 3 years of not printing a total of 315 pages to lose money on Instant Ink compared to the price of the new cartridge (I'm on the grandfathered $1 15 pages/month plan).

isykt• 3 years ago

If you have the patience / time / energy to track this, god bless. I don't. I want to buy a thing once and forget about it.

It's the same reason why I'm subscribed to exactly one digital service.

zlg_codes• 3 years ago

Yes! There are few things as pleasant as having no subscription services to worry about. Bills are plentiful enough as it is, I'm in no hurry to add to them. I love one-time purchases.

quickthrower25• 3 years ago

3rd party ink ftw. 6c a sheet is obnoxious. It is a good deal like service stations “2 cokes for $5” type deals are.

kuschku2• 3 years ago

My brother color laser does 3000 pages for 100€.

Dalewyn• 3 years ago

There's something oddly apt about a media outlet coloring themselves BSOD blue.

deepsun2• 3 years ago

Do they upload my printed PDFs to their cloud?

Cloudef• 3 years ago

I'm glad I can just step out and print at the konbini next street.

qingcharles• 3 years ago

I just typed コンビニ into Google. I'm in Chicago, and bless, it understood exactly what I wanted and gave me a map of all the local convenience stores (and handily translated their names to Japanese to boot).

kalleboo• 3 years ago

Yeah I print so rarely that owning a printer is a waste of space.

Plus the convenience store printers have neat tricks like being able to print A3 sheets or stickers.

worewood• 3 years ago

If corporations are people, HP deserves the death penalty

dreamcompiler• 3 years ago

Now I want to buy an HP printer, use it in wireless mode with a bogus account, and print 1000 pages a day of 4chan screen shots and posters that say "HP SUCKS."

73737373732• 3 years ago

I'd love to see a website where, if you are a verified buyer of a product, you can throw a virtual brick through a corporation's window, and there is a "brick count" top list

happytiger• 3 years ago

Friends don’t let friends use HP.

alfiedotwtf• 3 years ago

Back in the day, my primary school paid the printer company (I think it was Epson at the time) $400 (which was a lot of money back then) to "upgrade" the school's (we only had 2 printers for the whole school) printers from black and white to colour. Lo and behold, he opened it up and flipped a single dip switch.

73737373732• 3 years ago

Is there a list of corporation shaming websites/projects/organisations somewhere? Edit: I suppose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_organization is a good start

In Germany we have "Mogelpackung des Jahres" ("Cheat packaging of the year") by the consumer center/protection organisation for example that points out companies that abuse shrinkflation

https://www.vzhh.de/themen/mogelpackungen/mogelpackung-des-j...

Shame is a big driver of achieving cultural/behavioral alignment, the same has to be done with corporations if they misbehave.

While legal entities do not care, their employees and customers can be capable of that. Make every such infraction public so the companies' reputation, brand and profits correspond to the morality of its actions. Systemic failures like these need systemic fixes.

Maybe it would be a good idea to force companies to publicize product return rates, so managerial brainfarts like these get rewarded accordingly.

fodkodrasz• 3 years ago

You'd need no hardware redesign, just not install the connectors during manufacturing. You might need to adjust the automated QA actually. There are lots of parts not installed in electronics if you disassemble something and examine it. The reasons can be multiple, cost saving, using the same PCB for different similar products, etc.

littlestymaar• 3 years ago

I fins it fascinating that the verge is litterally just embedding a single toot and call that a presse article on which they put ads… How is that not a blatant copyright infringement of the OP? It's not like it's a short citation for illustration, the embeded toot is the entire content here!

tacker2000• 3 years ago

Why do people even buy HP printers? I gave up on them a decade ago when I had to download some 300MB “driver” on a clients PC, which of course installed a crapload of other stuff on it.

iforgotpassword• 3 years ago

Reminds me I still need to fix my laserjet 1020. No-nonsense laser printer for those two or three sheets I print each quarter, without having 90% of your ink just evaporate or dry up.

It's paper jamming when I insert more than one sheet at a time. I ordered a new pickup stamp and roller already. Unfortunately the pickup stamp was the wrong type and didn't fit, and the roller alone didn't fix it. I just don't print often enough for it to be annoying, but one day this thing will go again. One day....

memsom• 3 years ago

We have a very similar printer and I wondered if we had the same sticker. We do, but I obviously peeled it off ages ago because it was stuck randomly to the back of the printer and the USB port is already accessible. I seem to recall having to really mess about with the printer at some point as it stopped functioning with whatever HP online ink scam software it was originally running with. It now just AirPrints.

p0w3n3d• 3 years ago

"Cooking the frog"

"To cook the frog one need to slowly increase the temperature so the frog will not feel stress but relaxation, and when the temperature exceeds some point, the frog will not have strength to jump out"

As apparently this cruel recipe probably even does not work in case of this amphibian, it is really great metaphor and it really works in case of people. People can get accustomed to every inconvenience one can imagine, as long as it is accompanied by additional "convenience" attached to it. No cash - you don't need to take money with you. No cable printing - you can print without cables. Ink subscription - you can always have any amount of ink you want (as long as it does not exceed certain amount of pages)

DougN7• 3 years ago

I had 4 off-brand ink cartridges that suddenly wouldn’t work in my HP inkjet printer. Pissed me off so much I went out and bought a $350 Epson printer. Never again HP. Why did you turn evil :’(

Pay no attention to the USB port behind the “no USB” sticker

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