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Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#181

Post by muttled »

doubled112 wrote: post #146
bluedino wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> he would go to Best Buy, get talked up by a salesperson about a nice new printer, and buy it. In a past life I worked at Best Buy, and the standard printer sales tactics were nuts. If a customer wanted to buy a printer, you were supposed to sell them: 2 packs of color ink (remind the customer that the included cartridges are only half-full) 2 packs of black ink 4 reams of regular paper 2 packages of photo paper GO…

The GOLD printer cable used to get me. At Staples they also told us something about better USB cables for faster, more reliable printing. How bad does your existing USB cable need to be before it starts to cause your printing to fail? Stop running it over with your chair.

Reminds me of a story of a printer I installed for a customer (could have been Lexmark? It was a very cheap printer). It came with an unpowered USB hub which I thought was odd. The printer was not printing right. I happened to read the instructions for once out of frustration and it mentioned that you MUST use the USB hub. That didn't make any sense as usually a troubleshooting step is to remove the USB hub. But when I put the hub into the chain, the printer started working correctly. I wish I still had the model number to prove it, but there were knowledgebase articles about the hub being required. Probably to correct some mistake in manufacturing where it was cheaper to include the hub than fix all the printers.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#182

Post by ajford »

mu_killnine wrote: post #59
acjohnson55 wrote: post #39

I used to work for Lexmark, back when they were in the inkjet business. They are perhaps most notable for starting and fueling the race to the bottom in printer price. The theory was that if you could lock the users in, the customer lifetime value would be made on selling profitably prices supplies (i.e. the ink cartridge). There were a few big problems with this: - People often could buy a new printer, with supplies…

Just an anecdote: my grandfather passed away a few years ago and he was always into new technology. After he passed when we were cleaning up his home we found no fewer than 11 inkjet printers in his basement. Every time one stopped working (probably ran out of ink, or printed poorly because of long delays between printing) he would go to Best Buy, get talked up by a salesperson about a nice new printer, and buy it. I…

My dad ran a pet grooming business, and he went through probably a printer a year. I always figured it died because of the amount of pet fur in the air clogging up the printer, so at one point I asked him why he didn't put a door on the office to keep the fur out so his printer wouldn't get jammed up with pet fur.

He told me they weren't replaced because the fur killed them, it just wasn't worth replacing the inks since it was so damn expensive. It was always cheaper for him to replace the printer instead of replacing the ink, and because he never held onto a printer for much longer than a year he never bothered trying to keep it protected from the shop environment.

About the only think he ever printed was the occasional door flyer, checklists and general office paperwork, probably a single ream of paper a year at most.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#183

Post by ajford »

nirimda wrote: post #126
Ekaros wrote: post #23

Printers are the most mechanically complex computer related product. Just think, fans are basically single bearing and motor. Pumps are pretty much same. Traditional spinning disk, nearly closed system with two motors. Printers have multiple times this complexity. And the products bought are bought for lowest price. Or at least reasonable price. You get what you pay for. And what is paid is often very little. Thus po…

But we don't really have the option to buy a good quality printer. We can spend more on a printer, but the printer companies don't say "here we have a cheap printer that is designed to cause you trouble so that it becomes effectively a subscription service; there we have a quality printer that will last". And if they tried, it's unlikely we could reasonably believe them because everyone else lies. Cost is no indicato…

I've found that second-hand small-business or light enterprise printers tend to be far more reliable than consumer level printers.

I have a Dell small-business multi-function color laser and it's run like a champ for about 5 years now, with only one round of toner changes in that time. The only downside is that this particular model doesn't support cardstock or any thicker types of paper (~60lbs cover stock max IIRC).

But that's only been an issue a couple of times in the past.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#184

Post by timbit42 »

leonidasv wrote: post #28

Toner printers are "less scammy", at least in my experience. I had a HP one and always bought the genuine cartridges. Then I saw those videos about the printing industry scams (which does happen) and tried a third party toner that costs 1/5 of the price. Guess what? After like 10 perfect printed pages, it started leaking some powder, then stopped printing random chunks of the page and turned impossible to use. I went…

I've bought dozens of NEW third party cartridges for a variety of laser printer models and have never had an issue. I stay away from the third party REFILLED cartridges.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#185

Post by timbit42 »

skellera wrote: post #98
ironlake wrote: post #74

My Brother black-and-white laser is about ten years old. Pretty low volume of use from me, but it's held up well and is one of the most satisfying technology purchases I've ever made. If it stopped working, I would buy a Brother printer tomorrow without even looking at other brands. The printer industry is horrible, but also HP is toxic at every level and across every product and service. Just avoid.

Only printer I’ll buy. Does everything I need. Upkeep costs are negligible. Firmware updates don’t regress features. Don’t have a lot of brand loyalty but nice to see them not shit on their customers.

> Firmware updates don’t regress features.

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

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#186

Post by timbit42 »

dn3500 wrote: post #149

Where I live in Mexico nobody owns a printer. Instead there is a print shop on almost every street corner. You walk in, print wirelessly from your phone or laptop, or hand them a USB drive, and they hand you your prints made on an expensive office printer. They also scan and copy. And it's cheap.

This is what I've been recommending to inkjet printer owners for over 10 years. Buy a B&W laser for regular printing, or a color laser for medium quality color printouts, but if you want to print photo-quality images, it's cheaper to go to Walmart.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#187

Post by Jiro »

ajford wrote: post #182
mu_killnine wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an anecdote: my grandfather passed away a few years ago and he was always into new technology. After he passed when we were cleaning up his home we found no fewer than 11 inkjet printers in his basement. Every time one stopped working (probably ran out of ink, or printed poorly because of long delays between printing) he would go to Best Buy, get talked up by a salesperson about a nice new printer, and buy it. I…

My dad ran a pet grooming business, and he went through probably a printer a year. I always figured it died because of the amount of pet fur in the air clogging up the printer, so at one point I asked him why he didn't put a door on the office to keep the fur out so his printer wouldn't get jammed up with pet fur. He told me they weren't replaced because the fur killed them, it just wasn't worth replacing the inks si…

They sell you printers with half empty cartridges to prevent [people buying new printers for the cartridges.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#188

Post by CogitoCogito »

stuff4ben wrote: post #145
CogitoCogito wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The brother printer (HL-L2350DW) I have auto-detects when the toner is "low" and refuses to print. It does this even though I haven't noticed any degradation in printing quality and would prefer to continue printing with the old cartridge even if it results in a worse print. I find this kind of infuriating actually. Being able to continue using a cartridge as it gets low was always one the features I loved about lase…

I have a previous model DCPL2550DW and it has the low-toner warning too. Can't remember if it refused to print because I just went and bought a new toner for $45 which is cheap IMO. Anyways, I was perusing the Amazon reviews for my printer and came across this... maybe it'll help you? Now, to override the alert Brother gives you when it THINKS you are out of ink, I have user Allegra to thank for that as follows: "Go…

Thanks for the tip! I ended up buying a new toner, but I think I still have the old one somewhere so I'll see if I can find it and see if it works.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#189

Post by motohagiography »

toss1 wrote: post #165
motohagiography wrote: post #89

Possibly, when a market or a business isn't growing, it's dying, so they make shorter term decisions that ignore conseqeunces and externalities the managers don't believe they will be around for. Detecting scammy behaviour could be a leading indicator of an inflection point in a market or company where its growth phase is behind it. Printer companies are responding to paperlessness by hollowing out the goodwill of th…

>>Detecting scammy behaviour could be a leading indicator of an inflection point in a market or company where its growth phase is behind it. Agree this would seem like a good indicator. The counterpoint is entire VC-backed industries that unnecessarily use scammy biz models from the start, e.g., requiring everything to be an internet-based "service", exfiltrating data and requiring subscription funding when it obviou…

This could be co-opted as evidence for the theory as well, where all these products that are converting to services models are economic "inferior goods," where you switch away from them when you can afford something better. Month-to-month subscriptions are what you have when the product isn't good enough to buy an annual one, or just buy it outright.

The companies position themselves that way because they want to take advantage of peoples indifference to small subscriptions - because they know their products are objectively lame.

Re: Ask HN: Why is the printer industry so scammy?

#190

Post by smileybarry »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #39

I used to work for Lexmark, back when they were in the inkjet business. They are perhaps most notable for starting and fueling the race to the bottom in printer price. The theory was that if you could lock the users in, the customer lifetime value would be made on selling profitably prices supplies (i.e. the ink cartridge). There were a few big problems with this: - People often could buy a new printer, with supplies…

> - People often could buy a new printer, with supplies included, for cheaper than a new set of cartridges.

I had a friend who would actually do this -- every time they ran out of ink, they'd buy a new printer. I found out when I helped him troubleshoot something and saw 5+ different printer drivers installed.

After he told me about it, he opened the closet door to reveal a (actual) leaning tower of printers

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