Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink • Hacker News Board

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#441

Post by starky » Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 6:16 AM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #179

osrec wrote: post #22

Damn the need for recurring revenue. It makes us make bad things that eat away at our own resources. I wished there was an alternative payment model, where everything is perhaps paid off over time. If the product fails during the specified time period, the payments stop. It would hopefully give the companies some sort of recurring revenue, while incentivising them to build something that lasts and not play dirty tric…

Mandatory service contracts are common for commercial equipment. It guarantees recurring revenue and guarantees the customer will have support the next day (or same day sometimes) if anything happens. Retail customers simply pick the cheapest thing though that satisfies their needs, most of the time. It’s been the same story since the first retail shop I imagine.

Companies also love recurring revenue because it is far easier to convince finance once to pay a modest ongoing monthly fee, than it is to go back to them every few years to get approval to spend a large chunk of money the next version of something.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#442

Post by starky » Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 6:23 AM UTC

Ansil849 wrote: post #257

To the engineers who design things like this: fuck you.

The engineers know full well that this stuff is bullshit, but they aren't making a living unless they do what they are told. The problem is our society and the shareholders that demand maximal profit every quarter that result in the executives/board of companies aligning themselves to these anti-consumer tactics as it is the easiest way to ensure a consistent revenue base.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#443

Post by pepoluan » Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 6:44 AM UTC

alerighi wrote: post #18

I stopped buying inkjet printers. They are a scam, the ink costs a fortune and they are built as cheap as they can, meaning that they will break and you have to throw them away because they are impossible to repair, they are slow and when you need them they don't work because they were not used for too much time. After having 5 broken printers in the garage I said enough, that is a useless waste, and invested some mo…

Inkjet printers that use ink tanks are more "honest". In fact, such kind of Inkjet printers are fast replacing the cartridge-based ones in my country.

The ink is very inexpensive, you can purchase individual ink bottles (about $3 per bottle, and on average will last about 1000-2000 pages) and not the whole set, and the printers actually were built quite tough.

Sure, they're more expensive than the cartridge-based ones (4-5x the price), but one gains economy of operation + more well-built devices.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#444

Post by pepoluan » Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 6:54 AM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #333

RealityVoid wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is obviously a difference between the three, but is it that much? And how much is it really because of underlying technology and how much is it because of artificial market segmenting? I also take offense with he fact that the 3rd example does not even have a listed price - that is a BIG red flag for the habit of making the customer pay as much as possible. And the HW cost is justified, the SW cost is NOT, the…

Yes, the functional difference between those items is staggering. The difference in capacity alone between the HP all-in-one and the Xerox copier is literally the same in magnitude (60-80x) as the difference in capacity between a semi truck and a passenger vehicle. These are different tools that literally do different things. You can't print 250 handouts with that HP all-in-one, and you can't transport 25,000 lbs of…

25 page X 10 is a total of just 250 pages, a desktop Inkjet printer (the kind that uses ink tanks, not cartridges) can handle it no sweat, if a bit slower. Probably takes half an hour to complete.

When you hit 100 pages for 20 people though... ;-)

But I agree with the general gist of your post. Desktop personal printers are simply not built for _regular_ high load.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#445

Post by pepoluan » Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 7:02 AM UTC

dsego wrote: post #77

alerighi wrote: post #18

I stopped buying inkjet printers. They are a scam, the ink costs a fortune and they are built as cheap as they can, meaning that they will break and you have to throw them away because they are impossible to repair, they are slow and when you need them they don't work because they were not used for too much time. After having 5 broken printers in the garage I said enough, that is a useless waste, and invested some mo…

Are the new ones with refill bottles instead of ink cartridges any better?

I have a Brother printer. The ink bottles are so cheap I don't think twice about buying original ink (only saves me less than £0.50 if I buy a third-party ink, not worth it.)

The printer itself is quite well-built, never clogged even if I don't use it for weeks. (I do cover it with a table cloth if not in use, though)

In short, I'm quite satisfied and will definitely recommend Brother printers to others.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#446

Post by pepoluan » Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 7:12 AM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #73

tsimionescu wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about they make their money by selling a good printer? I don't have to buy has from my car company if I want a good car.

It’s has historically proven difficult to sustain that model because the consumer printer market for the past 20 years has been race to the bottom. It’s hard to compete when competitors are selling their printers at or below cost. Consumers mostly tend to make their purchase decisions on the margin, and so the razors-and-blades model works well. I guess there may be a few recent exceptions to this like the Epson Ecot…

In my country, it seems inkjet printers with tanks are quick replacing printers with cartridges.

The reason being people in my country don't really care about warranty, would go out and buy a cheap cartridge-based printer, then bring that printer to some hack shops that will "convert" that printer into a tank-based one, allowing you to use any third-party ink.

So manufacturers keep absorbing loss on their lower-than-cost printers and couldn't make a profit from ink sales.

That's why cartridge-based printers are slowly being phased out for ink tank printers... So manufacturers can grab profit directly from printer sales :-)

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#447

Post by pepoluan » Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 7:23 AM UTC

birdyrooster wrote: post #157

jader201 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got my first printer in high school, around 90-91. It was an HP laserjet printer, when they were first going mainstream. I loved it, it always printed well, and the toner seemed to last forever. Of course, it was B/W, but that was all I needed. Fast forward to today, I have never owned an inkjet printer. Over the past 30 years I’ve owned a total of 3 laser printers. The second was in 2005, because I wanted a scanne…

HP LaserJet print quality these days is worse than their laser printers back in the early 2000s. It’s quite sad. The products are flimsy and under engineered. The prints aren’t as sharp and the inks are as expensive (sometimes even more than) as before. They rev versions of printers and make them incompatible with previous cartridges that technically fit, but are no longer in the supported model list. Scammy as hell.

True. Last time I had an experience with an HP Color LaserJet was in 2009. It has expensive consumables, totally fragile, and often causes problems.

Replaced it with a Brother Color Laser MFC (with fax!) and everything just went swimmingly well.

Last I heard (2019), the HP had problems again and GA Dept just trashed the thing. The Brother was still working well.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#448

Post by deell223 » Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 8:28 AM UTC

wly_cdgr wrote: post #396

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the luxury of protesting with your job selection (as many do), then this is fine. Isn't it a slippery slope, though? I'd venture to guess almost any largish company has done something inexcusable by someone's reasonable standard. Should be all be ashamed for being members of the worker society?

If you work for a company that does things that you yourself believe to be wrong then yes, you should be ashamed. And everyone should believe that what Canon is doing is wrong

Why you want to blame workers but not the decision makers, like head of marketing/head of management?

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#449

Post by amenod » Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

sahkopoyta wrote: post #122

amelius wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I buy hardware that starts with "i" in its name. That way, I know that "I" am the owner and "I" am in complete control.

have you tried fixing your i-devices? I would not call it complete control if seemingly unrelated parts stop working after replacing some part yourself

I think GP was being sarcastic.

Re: Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

#450

Post by capableweb » Sun, Oct 17, 2021, 9:43 AM UTC

shadilay wrote: post #418

mensetmanusman wrote: post #11

For some reason I enabled the ‘auto refill’ on my new canon printer because that is what our office did (somehow). Don’t do that: it kept making purchases because it didn’t receive the ink as fast as it expected due to supply chain issues. It took a long time for Canon to cancel the orders that had never left the factory and give our hundreds of dollars back. It’s a fun story at least!

I can't think of any scenario where it would be wise to give an IoT device your credit card.

Realistically, it's highly unlikely that the device itself received and is storing the CC details. Most likely the device pings Canons servers when ordering should be done, and then the backend servers handles the actual order and payment.

But, never say never, it wouldn't even be the worst thing i've seen in the IoT world.