[HN Gopher] HP disables customers' printers if they use ink cart...
___________________________________________________________________
HP disables customers' printers if they use ink cartridges from
cheaper rivals
Author : jeremylevy
Score : 348 points
Date : 2023-05-13 17:24 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.telegraph.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.telegraph.co.uk)
| wkat4242 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I thought it was only epson. But it seems that cannon and hp
| offer bottle-fed printers, too.
| tbirdny wrote:
| 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.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I'm curious if this significantly hinges on the validity of
| EULAs, especially ones with onerous terms.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| 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...
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| 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.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| 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.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| 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.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| I know that. There are no signs at best buy that tell people
| that BEFORE they unknowingly buy these garbage products.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > 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_crmdgeon wrote:
| 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.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| 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_crmdgeon wrote:
| To be fair, that's a truly niche usecase.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| 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.
| jmugan wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| ravenstine wrote:
| 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!
| einpoklum wrote:
| 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.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| >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.
| scarface74 wrote:
| 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.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > I just look for AirPrint compatible printers
|
| A custom, single-vendor protocol? Hmm. Is it at least
| license-free and patent-free? ... I doubt it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You mean like Postscript?
|
| No there is no license fee.
|
| This is just like everything else on modern operating
| system. Apple defines a protocol for printers and if you
| follow that protocol, Apple guarantees compatibility and
| the user doesn't have to worry about printer drivers and
| the manufacturer doesn't have to worry about creating a
| new printer driver when a new operating system is
| released.
|
| When a Windows user updates to a new OS, they have to
| often go find a new driver. I connect my Mac or iOS
| device to my WiFI network and it automatically found all
| of my of my AirPrint compatible printers.
|
| As a vendor, if I support AirPrint, my addressable market
| is anyone who has bought an iOS device since 2010 or a
| Mac since 2012.
|
| That's a much better system than the malware that comes
| with most Windows printers.
| andrewaylett wrote:
| 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.
| snvzz wrote:
| 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.
| macintux wrote:
| 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.
| jwilk wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131
| wongarsu wrote:
| 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.
| joering2 wrote:
| 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.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Exactly this, I've not gone near an inkjet printer since
| 1992. When Apple released it's first "affordable" $1000 laser
| printer.
| sgc wrote:
| I use a Brother laser with non-oem cartridge. That is what
| Brother is known for.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I learned to hate HP inkjets. I decided never to buy HP
| again.
|
| When I eventually gave up on inkjets altogether, I bought a
| Samsung laser. It didn't cost much more than an inkjet,
| toner lasts for ages, doesn't dry up, and it works fine.
| But as soon as I googled the support pages, it turned out
| Samsung's printer division had been acquired by HP, the
| website was impossible to navigate, and there wasn't any
| documentation.
|
| So my one-man boycott failed.
| mcv wrote:
| Same here. I would never ever buy anything from HP, but
| now my Samsung printer gets its support from HP. I feel
| betrayed.
|
| And I don't know if it's related, but my Samsung wireless
| network printer does not print from the network anymore.
| jbaber wrote:
| I buy authentic Brother toner cartridges out of
| _gratitude_. I was so happy after years of HP 's bad
| treatment.
| userbinator wrote:
| 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.
| PopePompus wrote:
| 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.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > 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...
| PopePompus wrote:
| 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.
| znpy wrote:
| 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.
| pulvinar wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| bediger4000 wrote:
| 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.
| ryao wrote:
| 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.
| rwaksmunski wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > Pre-chip
|
| What's the story with the chip?
| jwilk wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 presumably.
| [deleted]
| neuralRiot wrote:
| This is from 2020
|
| https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-prin...
| crazygringo wrote:
| 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.
| quitit wrote:
| 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.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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
| quitit wrote:
| Actually your interpretation of "Permanent disabling" is
| the grammatically correct interpretation here, because "if"
| is used. To indicate concurrent behaviour we need to see a
| sentence using one of these: when, while, or whilst.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > 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.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > 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.
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| Semi-bricking is like saying someone is semi-pregnant.
| Kiro wrote:
| > 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.
| quitit wrote:
| These people can't separate an idea from a side. They're
| incapable of holding useful debate because all thoughts
| must be categorised as "us" or "the enemy". It provides no
| route for correcting ourselves and no tolerance for
| enhancing our arguments.
| ranting-moth wrote:
| 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.
| riedel wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| puma_ambit wrote:
| Yeah, they're on my list of brands to not buy any more.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Tomorrow's story should be: Customers "disable" their purchasing
| of HP printers in favor of cheaper, but not as cheap, rivals.
| pongo1231 wrote:
| 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.
| newmanah223 wrote:
| 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.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| 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.
| cubefox wrote:
| 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.
| golem14 wrote:
| 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).
| cubefox wrote:
| HP doesn't brick the printers either, it just doesn't print
| with third party cartridges.
| golem14 wrote:
| That's a fair-ish point, but in practical terms, the
| printer is bricked until I pay up, whereas the phone is
| basically working with all free apps and web apps, which
| for many people is good enough.
|
| So it's a significant difference.
| lostlogin wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| scarface74 wrote:
| 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.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| 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.
| cubefox wrote:
| Same argument: "You get nothing extra from buying AppStore
| apps otherwise they wouldn't do this."
| mcny wrote:
| 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.
| elbigbad wrote:
| 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.
| option wrote:
| intentionally destroying someone's property?
| emodendroket wrote:
| Let's see a statute this would fall under.
| lazide wrote:
| Not the poster or taking a position, but California Penal
| Code 594 (Vandalism/Malicious Mischief) might apply if
| one were to try to take that direction. [https://leginfo.
| legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...]
|
| Difficulty: it's a wobbler, and is only a misdemeanor
| unless it's > $400 worth of damage. Good luck proving
| that in this situation.
|
| Maybe if they wrote in an email their evil plan to set
| the printers on fire so their customers would buy new
| ones, and it caught some people's houses on fire.
|
| Civil claims or a class action are an entirely different
| matter of course.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| 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.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > 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.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| There are other printer brands that do not follow HP's
| lowball tactics.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > 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
| oxfordmale wrote:
| HP printing revenue has been sliding for more than a
| decade.
| torstenvl wrote:
| Netflix is down by a lot.
|
| Some of that may be due to temporary outlook during the
| COVID pandemic.
|
| However, it's still down by more than 10% from a pre-
| lockdown stock price of ~380.00 in February 2020.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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 wrote:
| > 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.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| 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.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| 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"
| emodendroket wrote:
| 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.
| torstenvl wrote:
| Not my practice area, and I don't know all the facts. But
| if they sold printers and later disable those printers, it
| doesn't strike me as unreasonable to treat that as a fraud
| or swindle in violation of 18 U.S.C. SS 1341, or as an
| unfair or deceptive trade practice under 15 U.S.C. SS 45.
|
| If this were anything other than tech - if, say, IKEA sold
| you a bed frame that disintegrated the moment you used a
| non-IKEA mattress or comforter - I don't think the
| government would be so blase about it.
|
| (EDIT: Perhaps less of a case if the printer merely won't
| work _with those cartridges_ rather than actually being
| disabled.)
| ROTMetro wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| gaze wrote:
| 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.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| 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.
| throwawayadvsec wrote:
| Isn't it a good thing that HN isn't a hivemind?
| jeltz wrote:
| HN is more than just one guy and different articles attract
| different audiences.
| bxparks wrote:
| Can't believe someone downvoted your perfectly reasonable
| comment.
| testfoobar wrote:
| In a competitive market, individual consumer decisions punish
| bad actors.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Prison time? For bricking an $80 printer unless you use
| specific parts? I don't think so. Let's try to stay on planet
| earth here..
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| It's not a 80$ 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.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| Ink isn't a "part".
| liendolucas wrote:
| 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.
| jxf wrote:
| Not saying they should go to jail, but OP is saying they're
| bricking potentially millions of printers, not one $80
| printer.
| rvense wrote:
| I'm quite sure you can go to prison for stealing a printer.
| Why not for breaking one?
| bluGill wrote:
| That is vandalism.
| eric-hu wrote:
| The cynical answer might be that HP secretly updated their
| TOS so that the printer transaction is not a purchase but a
| long term rental on their terms. Not unlike "buying" a game
| on Steam or "buying" a Tesla. In both cases, you do
| something the vendor dislikes and your ownership is toast.
| clipsy wrote:
| 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."
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I'm curious if this violates U.S. code 1030(a)(5) [0]
|
| "(5)
|
| (A)knowingly causes the transmission of a program,
| information, code, or command, and as a result of such
| conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization,
| to a protected computer;
|
| (B)intentionally accesses a protected computer without
| authorization, and as a result of such conduct, recklessly
| causes damage; or
|
| (C)intentionally accesses a protected computer without
| authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes
| damage and loss.[2]"
|
| [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
| mcny wrote:
| We should absolutely use every tool available to us. I
| anal and I don't quite understand if this is CFAA but it
| is my personal conviction that that the CFAA is both
| overly broad and unnecessary and must be repealed.
|
| Meanwhile, it is a miscarriage of justice that
| prosecutors don't seem to use CFAA against large
| corporations.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Are we even sure that the customers legally own the
| printers? For instance, has anyone bothered to read the
| EULA that came with whatever bundled software someone
| installs now days to get the printer driver working?
|
| Even if there isn't surreptitious transfer of the
| hardware, they could certainly have a clause in there
| that authorizes them to do such things.
| greiskul wrote:
| That's not how sale of physical products work. If you go
| to a store and buy a box and take it home, without the
| people at the store making you read and sign a contract,
| you own it.
| Bran_son wrote:
| Given that it is near impossible to participate in modern
| society without patronizing contract-abusing
| corporations, we should ask ourselves:
|
| Do we want to be ruled by laws, or by contracts?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > Are we even sure that the customers legally own the
| printers? For instance, has anyone bothered to read the
| EULA
|
| What If i never installed their software? Now what?
| bluGill wrote:
| I doubt you have have any problem convincing that
| printers are goods that you own and the EULA is
| meaningless. Eulas already are questionable from a legal
| standpoint as they don't really meet the standards of a
| contract.
| helsontaveras18 wrote:
| Yes, non-proud HP InkJet owner. You own the printer.
| However, you MUST be subscribed to their HP Whatever
| Program and pre-pay them the amount of pages you'd like
| to print on a monthly basis. You cannot print unless you
| are on the program. I did read these terms because it was
| insane, and I'm paraphrasing.
|
| It looks like they updated their program terms to force
| you to buy their ink. Honestly I thought that was already
| the case since I had tried using cheaper ink and the
| printer rejected it.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Prison seems very extreme to me. But maybe it's
| appropriate, I don't know.
| serf wrote:
| whats the threshold? how much damage has to occur until a
| CEO can be held to the same standards as a citizen?
|
| "corporations are people except for all that crime and
| punishment stuff."
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| What would happen if you went around to every house in
| your neighborhood and smashed everyone's printers? Would
| you be fined 0.01% of the cost of damaged items, or would
| you go to jail?
| mcv wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| gameman144 wrote:
| 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.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| 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).
| boycott-israel wrote:
| 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)
| gizmo wrote:
| This is a myth that refuses to go away. A business can go
| in whatever direction it chooses, even if it hurts
| shareholders, employees, or other stakeholders by doing so.
| Anything short of directly looting the company coffers by
| directors is fine in a legal sense. Shareholders can just
| sell if they lose faith in leadership, or put pressure on
| the board.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| There is no fiduciary duty to maximising shareholder value.
| joelwilliamson wrote:
| Can you give an example of a time when a CEO or board of
| directors lost a suit for taking the morally upright option
| instead of trying to maximize share value? I often hear
| people talking about this, but it's always generalities
| rather than specific occurrences.
| layer8 wrote:
| This is false and a misconception, see e.g.
| https://medium.com/bull-market/new-york-times-reporters-
| perp....
| jackphilson wrote:
| or just let the free market run it's course.
| option wrote:
| the CEO absolutely needs to face prison for this - they
| basically destroyed other peoples' property.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >destroyed other peoples' property.
|
| What property was destroyed? The HP printer still works
| with genuine ink cartridges and the third party ink
| cartridge will work for printers that don't require genuine
| HP ink.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| If I start a business as a sole trader and do shit for
| this, I get prison time.
|
| If a big-time CEO does this, he gets a fay bonus
| kerkeslager wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Corporate fines just end up being passed on to workers_
|
| No they don't, they get passed on to shareholders. The
| market cap of the company decreases by the amount of the
| fine (plus any predicted future effect of the lost money)
| and the stock price goes down to reflect that.
|
| If the company could get away with paying workers less or
| decreasing its workforce in order to boost profitability,
| it already would have. It's not waiting for a fine to
| justify doing so.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > No they don't, they get passed on to shareholders. The
| market cap of the company decreases by the amount of the
| fine (plus any predicted future effect of the lost money)
| and the stock price goes down to reflect that.
|
| Ehh, if they have to, but execs are going to do their
| very best not to pass on costs to shareholders.
|
| Even if shareholders foot the bill, why would that be a
| desirable outcome? Are you arguing that we have to fine
| corporations instead of holding the decision makers
| responsible? What do you have against people taking
| responsibility for their own actions?
|
| > If the company could get away with paying workers less
| or decreasing its workforce in order to boost
| profitability, it already would have. It's not waiting
| for a fine to justify doing so.
|
| But they _couldn 't_ pay workers less or decrease
| workforce, because they needed those workers to execute
| the unethical business plan. They weren't waiting for a
| fine to cut workers, they were waiting for the cash cow
| to stop producing milk to cut workers who were necessary
| to keep the cash cow going.
| ricktdotorg wrote:
| > Ehh, if they have to, but execs are going to do their
| very best not to pass on costs to shareholders.
|
| this is the KEY thing that is always missed.
|
| shareholder happiness level: monitored at all times, a
| KPI of utmost significance at the most senior levels.
|
| worker/employee happiness level: monitored at the Q{1-4}
| level at best, a KPI of least significance at all levels.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _but execs are going to do their very best not to pass
| on costs to shareholders._
|
| But it's not up to execs, execs don't control the share
| price, no matter how much they wish they could. The
| market does. The market sees the fine, it adjusts the
| market cap, done.
|
| > _Even if shareholders foot the bill, why would that be
| a desirable outcome?_
|
| Because shareholders elected the board. That's the
| _entire_ foundation of joint-stock corporations, that
| shareholders get the rewards but also suffer the losses.
| htss2013 wrote:
| Why would you assume the market efficiently adjusts for
| things like fines? Have you seen the stock market lately?
| There is at best a loose correlation between business
| reality and stock prices.
|
| Why would there be a 1 to 1 relationship between the
| price of stocks and reality, when most investing is blind
| passive investing that ignores reality by design?
| injidup wrote:
| If you are sure stocks are over or under priced then go
| mortgage your house and trade your financial security
| against the market and win.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > But it's not up to execs, execs don't control the share
| price, no matter how much they wish they could. The
| market does. The market sees the fine, it adjusts the
| market cap, done.
|
| Not directly, but surely I don't need to explain to you
| what effect cutting costs typically has on share price?
|
| > Because shareholders elected the board. That's the
| entire foundation of joint-stock corporations, that
| shareholders get the rewards but also suffer the losses.
|
| Sorry, I'm missing the part of this where you answered
| the question. Why is this a desirable outcome? What is
| the problem with holding human beings responsible for
| their own actions?
|
| I don't give a fuck about the foundation of joint-stock
| corporations. If the foundations of joint-stock
| corporations result in sociopaths profiting off harming
| people with no consequences, the foundations of joint-
| stock corporations need to change or be discarded
| completely.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _surely I don 't need to explain to you what effect
| laying off a bunch of workers might have on share price?_
|
| Surely you do, because sometimes the stock goes up if the
| workers weren't needed in the first place, sometimes it
| goes down because it shows the company is flailing, and
| sometimes it does nothing because it's business as usual.
|
| You're operating under an illusion that execs have
| control over how the market will respond.
|
| > _Sorry, I 'm missing the part of this where you
| answered the question._
|
| And I'm missing the part where anything I wrote gave you
| the excuse to be rude. Please be civil, this is HN.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > And I'm missing the part where anything I wrote gave
| you the excuse to be rude. Please be civil, this is HN.
|
| Still no answer to the question. Why should anyone care
| about maintaining the foundations of joint-stock
| corporations if joint-stock corporations are actively
| harmful?
|
| You're arguing against holding sociopaths responsible for
| causing harm to others on a large scale. If that's
| included in your definition of "civil", then maybe
| civility isn't worth much.
|
| I had to laugh at "this is HN". I come to HN because it's
| where I can find out what people who care about money
| more than people think about the latest issues. HN can be
| trusted to have the absolute worst take on any given
| issue. Recent HN takes I've seen are "slavery is a
| reasonable way to colonize Mars" and "maybe eating the
| elderly isn't such a bad idea". This isn't a place for
| civil people.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| I had to double check and you were not responding to me,
| but yes, it was in fact you who was passive aggressive
| rude and underhanded with your snide "surely I don't have
| to", conceited, pretentious, snarky response. If you're
| going to accuse others of being rude, you should start.
| This is not reddit. Are you lost? Pretentious pomp should
| best be left at the door anywhere outside of the reddit
| quarantine of awful humans.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| In the parlance of an old internet meme, "why not both"?
|
| Also, they _are_ cutting employees. There have been a lot
| of layoffs recently, and some of them have explicitly
| stated it'd not because they can't afford those
| employees.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Because that's not how it works, it isn't both.
|
| Yes HP is laying off employees just like pretty much
| every other large tech company right now. Which shows you
| it has nothing to do with fines, and rather everything to
| do with industry-wide overexpansion during COVID and high
| interest rates now.
| mcny wrote:
| > Because that's not how it works
|
| Exactly!
|
| I don't know how to deal with people who talk about the
| economy in terms of a perfect competition free market
| where all participants have full knowledge and are all
| equal in terms of power. If a physicist talked in terms
| of zero friction or spherical cows, we would laugh them
| off and never listen to them again. And yet people
| continue to talk about the economy with these assumptions
| that make zero friction and spherical cows look like
| practical applied physics.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I don't know where the requirement of full knowledge
| became part of the definition of a free market.
|
| Because it isn't true.
|
| Another word for lack of knowledge is "risk".
|
| The amount of risk is factored into the price of
| _everything_ you buy and sell. For example, a name brand
| item sells for a higher price than a generic item because
| the name brand carries with it less risk for the buyer.
| jjav wrote:
| > The market cap of the company decreases by the amount
| of the fine (plus any predicted future effect of the lost
| money) and the stock price goes down to reflect that.
|
| Purely in theory in a vacuum, yes. In practice, you'll
| have a very hard time finding examples where that
| actually happened. At best, the stock takes a momentary
| dip and next ~week it's back to where it was.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Well in reality it's a gradual decrease over time as the
| fine moves from hypothetical low-probability to actually
| happening. By the time the fine happens it's often
| already been "priced in".
|
| But so what if the stock is back up the following week?
| More things happened over the following week. You're
| missing the fact that _it would have been up even higher_
| if it weren 't for the fine. (Alternatively, the stock
| also might _go down even further_ the following week. But
| similarly, it wouldn 't have gone down as much if not for
| the fine.)
|
| This is not theory, this is how stocks actually work in
| the aggregate. If they didn't, you'd be able to make a
| lot of easy money off the stock market otherwise.
| jorvi wrote:
| Pretty much. Yesterday I wanted to grab some Fanta for in
| the park.
|
| A 0.33L can would've been too little, but a 1L bottle too
| much, and a 1.5L bottle far too much. 0.50L was the
| perfect size.
|
| The pricing?
|
| 0.33L - EUR0.66 (EUR2.00 per L)
|
| 0.50L - EUR1.48 (EUR2.96 per L)
|
| 1.00L - EUR1.93 (EUR1.93 per L)
|
| 1.50L - EUR2.09 (EUR1.39 per L)
|
| Initially this made me angry, as it is very clear they
| figured out that the 0.5L bottle is the most convenient
| size, and put a huge premium on that, as people that need
| that size (for say, in a backpack) will pay it for lack
| of alternative. In other words, the price the market will
| bear.
|
| But then I reminded myself, modern companies will always
| try to give you the least amount of value for the highest
| price the market will bear.
|
| This is also why you should never feel bad if you can get
| one over on a company. Pricing error that gets you
| expensive shoes for EUR1? Screw 'em. Contractual
| obligation that effectively gives you lifetime for EUR1?
| Screw 'em. They'll do the same to you whenever they can.
|
| I wish businesses believed in being synergistic with
| their customers and nurturing loyalty, but alas. Not the
| times we live in.
| pcai wrote:
| Just buy 2 of the 0.33L! You already did the math!
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > This is also why you should never feel bad if you can
| get one over on a company. Pricing error that gets you
| expensive shoes for EUR1? Screw 'em. Contractual
| obligation that effectively gives you lifetime for EUR1?
| Screw 'em. They'll do the same to you whenever they can
|
| I recently saw a PS700 bicycle carbon fork on sale for
| PS70, new, the shop just forgot a zero. I didnt buy it
| out of feeling bad :(
| WalterBright wrote:
| > modern companies will always try to give you the least
| amount of value for the highest price the market will
| bear
|
| Modern consumers will always try to pay as little as
| possible for the highest amount of value they can.
|
| The proper term for this is The Law of Supply and Demand.
| It's how markets work.
|
| BTW, your anecdote illustrates why making the effort to
| learn some math while in grade school is worthwhile.
| amluto wrote:
| If you can run a successful business by selling $100
| objects that cost $20 each to make and result in an average
| of $90 of fines per sale, and make it up by mistreating
| your workers, I applaud you.
| pengaru wrote:
| Does being Too Big To Fail and getting government
| bailouts count as successful?
| DanHulton wrote:
| Mistreatment happens in a variety of ways, some of them,
| yes, financial. These can be, but are not limited to:
|
| - Layoffs - Demotion - Canceling of raises - Canceling of
| promotions - Reduction in perks and other business
| benefits - etc
| pydry wrote:
| >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."
|
| This is like "if you raise the minimum wage we'll only have
| to lay people off" which is equally self serving and
| utterly, completely wrong.
|
| Employees dont pay. Shareholders pay. If they could have
| fired 1 employee and collected a bit of extra profit they
| would already have done so.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > If they could have fired 1 employee and collected a bit
| of extra profit they would already have done so.
|
| But they _couldn 't_ pay workers less or decrease
| workforce, because they needed those workers to execute
| the unethical business plan. They weren't waiting for a
| fine to cut workers, they were waiting for the cash cow
| to stop producing milk to cut workers who were necessary
| to keep the cash cow going.
| mcny wrote:
| 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.
| educaysean wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Did these people continue to maintain the processes and
| rules enacted by their predecessors? If so they aren't
| "left holding the bag", they are the remaining
| beneficiaries of the system. If you are one of the few who
| have the power to stop something but you don't because you
| benefit from the status quo, you aren't a victim. You are
| the perpetrator.
| mcny wrote:
| > If you are one of the few who have the power to stop
| something but you don't because you benefit from the
| status quo, you aren't a victim. You are the perpetrator.
|
| I know you said few and I am moving goal posts here a
| little but it isn't always the "big guys" who suffer
| either.
|
| Will you volunteer to tell the retiring teacher or
| firefighter that they will have to starve because you'd
| rather punish the ultimate perpetrators rather than hold
| the actually guilty (the then CEO and the board)
| accountable to the law?
| jeltz wrote:
| While GDPR is far from perfect those fines made a huge
| difference. Hefty fines do scare companies.
| znpy wrote:
| If you don't want to be held accountable you shouldn't be ceo
| at all, in my opinion.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| 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.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Just being able to hold CEOs and directors vicariously liable
| for employee actions like this would be a good start.
| detrites wrote:
| 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.
| bt4u wrote:
| [dead]
| ryao wrote:
| 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.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > 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?
| bluescrn wrote:
| 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.
| nimbius wrote:
| 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.
| josephcsible wrote:
| 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.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| 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.
| codedokode wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| crazygringo wrote:
| No, there's nothing naive about it at all. I'm not making a
| specific political endorsement here, but if voters elect
| candidates like e.g. Elizabeth Warren to Congress then you
| get much stronger consumer protections, corporate lobbying
| be damned.
|
| I'm not saying corporate lobbying has zero influence (that
| _would_ be naive), but if the electorate _chooses to care_
| about something, it trumps corporations. This is actually a
| major finding of academic research on corporate influence
| and lobbying in politics -- it 's mostly effective
| _specifically in areas where voters aren 't paying
| attention and don't care_.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| The idea that there's cornucopias of choice in day to day
| life for 99% of Americans is absurd
|
| You have to go to extraordinary and extreme measures to
| break out of the basic choices that you are offered for
| which the profits all go to the same group of people
|
| There is basically Zero diversity in the corporate
| landscape for either consumers or workers.
|
| Maybe even if that's the trend, let's choose not all live
| in a pvp hellscape owned by about 10,000 people that
| enjoy infinite luxury, another 8 million who insulate
| them by showing that "You too can be a class striver and
| abandon the working class" and the rest of the 8Billion
| people slowly killing each other for the scraps left
| behind as everyone tries to claw their way into the 1%
| and beyond.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > You have to go to extraordinary and extreme measures to
| break out of the basic choices that you are offered for
| which the profits all go to the same group of people
|
| In this case we are talking about printers. There are
| literally dozens of printer makers.
| lazide wrote:
| Personally I just buy Brother now, though they are
| starting to do some of the tricks.
|
| Least evil option?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| What is Brother doing now? I haven't heard that with
| Brother printers and I had one for years.
| lazide wrote:
| Some of their software started to get pushy, and their
| toner cartridges started to 'be empty' too early - with
| some new printers also having 'trial' toners with almost
| no toner in them.
|
| Mellow compared to the alternatives.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| And Berkshire Hathaway has an outsize position in the
| largest of them, HP.
|
| What else does BRK own, and thus influence via board and
| activist shareholder position that is in your home.
|
| This is the point. You can have a million "options" but
| if they all only benefit a handful of owners then no
| matter how you "vote" with your dollars it still makes
| the same people the same money.
|
| Again, you have to go to extremes to find a printer that
| is manufactured by a union or employee owned cooperative
| if there even are any.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| So fraud shouldn't result in prison time? This isn't an "oops
| I couldn't do what I said", it's purposeful.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > 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.
| emodendroket wrote:
| What criminal law have they violated?
| wdr1 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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."
| liendolucas wrote:
| 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.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Because printers are sold at a loss.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Name recognition is a hell of a drug.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| The Paperless Revolution will hopefully one day bankrupt Hewlett
| Packard.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Selling something, and then remotely disabling it without the
| purchaser's knowledge or consent, sounds like vandalism to me.
| perihelions wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| WalterBright wrote:
| 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".
| classified wrote:
| What they've managed to achieve with this is that I'll never buy
| an HP printer ever again.
| kayson wrote:
| 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.
| wongarsu wrote:
| 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
| janoc wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| > competition
|
| Oh you sweet summer child. Relevant cartoon, ignoring caption:
| https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_U-39iprM4Cs/SfZWFzmSQ-I/AAAAAAAAA...
|
| They ALL do it.
| clipsy wrote:
| 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.
| marcodiego wrote:
| 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...
| crest wrote:
| 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.
| throw7 wrote:
| "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 wrote:
| well, this is direction the world is heading in
| specialist wrote:
| 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.
| fwlr wrote:
| Jailbreaking and hardware-hacking printers is starting to sound
| like it could be a whole lot of fun, actually
| jmyeet wrote:
| 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-...
| jimbobimbo wrote:
| 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.
| psyfi wrote:
| Boycott HP
| adityamwagh wrote:
| 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?
| rvense wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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!
| mrighele wrote:
| 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.
| serf wrote:
| >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.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| 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.
| rvense wrote:
| 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_son wrote:
| > 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.
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| You signed the contract. You agreed to it, it doesn't
| matter how one sided it was. You could sign a contract to
| eat shit for a dollar. You're correct in that some
| countries restrict consent between individuals.
| janoc wrote:
| That's utter nonsense. You can't consent to stuff that is
| against the law, esp. when the "power balance" when
| signing the contract is extremely lopsided. Such contract
| clauses are routinely ruled invalid and unenforceable.
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| Whether I consent to something has little to do with the
| law. I would hope that the law upholds consent, but as we
| see in the EU, it doesn't.
| Bran_son wrote:
| The company consented to have its contracts limited by
| continuing to do business in the EU.
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| As did the gays consent to not marrying, or does "you
| consent if we voted for it" only apply when you like the
| vote?
| Bran_son wrote:
| It applies always. But I don't see contractual consent as
| the highest moral virtue.
| _proofs wrote:
| this is.. not how contracts work at all. contracts in
| bad-faith or that impose unreasonable stipulations are
| not exactly binding regardless of a signature.
|
| the question of course becomes whether or not it is worth
| it to litigate but that is another conversation.
| Bran_son wrote:
| > You agreed to it, it doesn't matter how one sided it
| was.
|
| The libertarian philosophy in a nutshell. It doesn't
| matter if society turns into a corporate fiefdom, as long
| as contracts and property rights are upheld.
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| Do your part and say no. Unlike the EU, we won't make
| that illegal.
| Bran_son wrote:
| > Do your part and say no.
|
| I'll do my part and vote to make it illegal, and not
| reduce myself to a mere consumer. Just like companies
| don't, and lobby for restrictive patent laws. What
| happens when one side limits itself to just (individual)
| consumer choices, while the other uses all political and
| organizational means available to gain an advantage? In
| other words, if two players play a game, and one of them
| limits themselves to only a small subset of moves, while
| the other uses all, which player will win?
|
| > make that illegal.
|
| Oh no, that's just consent between individuals. People
| collectively place terms you agree to by continuing to
| conduct business in that country. If you don't like it,
| take your business elsewhere - they can run their
| countries how they like. You're not saying organizing
| into companies is legitimate, but organizing into
| countries isn't, are you?
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| Yeah we've already established that you want to place
| restrictions on consent. I also don't support patents,
| see what a bit of consistency does for you?
|
| I am precisely saying countries are less legitimate than
| individuals. Governments hold and use their monopoly on
| force, they do not follow the rules they impose on those
| they govern. SpaceX can't claim Mars and beat down anyone
| that challenges them, and yet that is exactly how most
| state borders came to be today. But again, if you're
| willing to be consistent, then socialists should feel
| free to move to Cuba, else they consent to living under
| capitalism.
| rvense wrote:
| Of course it matters how one-sided it is, and of course
| it matters whether or not this was obvious at the time of
| purchase. There's absolutely no way this is legal in
| Europe, but unfortunately it's sometimes hard to make
| these big American companies follow the law.
| camhenlin wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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-scratch wrote:
| 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?
| nubinetwork wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090388
| onepointsixC wrote:
| This doesn't sound legal, and if it is it shouldn't be.
| gabereiser wrote:
| It's not, they were sued for this practice a few years ago.
| They continue to do it.
| eestrada wrote:
| 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.
| auggierose wrote:
| Did they lose the lawsuit?
| gabereiser wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/11/23635168/hp-printer-
| updat...
|
| https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-
| prin...
| FaridIO wrote:
| 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.
| 206lol wrote:
| [dead]
| g42gregory wrote:
| Good to know. No HP for me, when I will buy a replacement
| printer.
| millzlane wrote:
| I like brother printers.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Is it possible to like a printer? Frustration, irritation and
| anger would summarise my feelings about them.
| ravenstine wrote:
| 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.
| arlattimore wrote:
| 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.
| UberFly wrote:
| Geeze, what if you accidentally buy a counterfeit ink item off
| eBay or something?
| timbit42 wrote:
| Buy another one. The printer will still work if you put in a
| real HP one.
| wrd83 wrote:
| 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.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| 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.
| pknopf wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| That sounds like pure horror to me. I haven't heard of this
| before. Can you provide a source to back this claim?
| fwlr wrote:
| 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...)
| synergy20 wrote:
| 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?
| seized wrote:
| Time to get a Brother.
| nubinetwork wrote:
| Apparently they aren't all that great either...
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| 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.
| ehPReth wrote:
| 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.
| xanathar wrote:
| Ask your parents, but be ware that it will take a few years for
| that to pay off.
|
| Oh wait, you meant...
| snvzz wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| 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_crmdgeon wrote:
| 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.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Really? That'd be quite a regression. I had a mid-range
| home color inkjet in the year 2000 that made color prints
| which were easily as good as local photo printers.
|
| You had to enable higher quality prints, and use the
| special photo paper, of which they provided samples with
| the printer.
|
| Oh and you had to wait about 5 minutes for a full page
| print, maybe 10. But people would say "this came from your
| HOME printer?" And there's all these little HP logos on the
| back of the photo, like a real print shop.
|
| I was so impressed by the quality that I printed my first
| resume on photo paper, and was slightly confused when
| people were less than blown away by it :-)
| bequanna wrote:
| Or buy a Brother printer. They aren't without sin, but they
| make quality printers and don't pull crap like this.
| bastard_op wrote:
| 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.
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