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HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

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Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

#11

Post by xadhominemx »

nawgz wrote: post #2

I'm amazed that this hasn't been regulated. Aftermarket commodities being turned into walled gardens based not on physical incompatibility but software checks is obscene. Does the EU have defenses against this kind of behavior? I feel like monopolistic is the wrong word. Creating captive markets?

There are multiple versions/types of HP printers. Some have higher price/high marfin printer hardware but either have very large toner/ink tanks that last for a long time and are very cheap per page, or allow third-party cartridges. Others have low printer prices/margins but lock you into more expensive HP ink. Your choice.

Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

#12

Post by packetlost »

tiedieconderoga wrote: post #7
leetrout wrote: post #3

Speaking of YC funding disruption where are the home printer startups? Is it just that unprofitable to even try? Or the hardware too difficult or tricky? Or the driver software? Seems like there are zero good alternatives for home printing. HP doing this stuff or making you subscribe to HP+. Brother offering basically zero support. Is epson or canon even competitive for a home printer?

VCs tend to dislike manufacturing startups. It takes a lot of capital to get going, some time to get good yield & work out the early flaws, and there isn't much potential for a huge exit in 5-10 years. I'm more surprised that the printer market hasn't followed the security camera market, with lots of cheap and open options on markets like AliExpress that ship with phone-home firmware.

Printers are far more precise devices than you'd think. Building a camera from off the shelf Sony image sensors, slapping it in a plastic shell with a small ARM or RISC-V MCU is way easier of a design challenge than building a functioning printer.

Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

#13

Post by antod »

pdonis wrote: post #5
leetrout wrote: post #3

Speaking of YC funding disruption where are the home printer startups? Is it just that unprofitable to even try? Or the hardware too difficult or tricky? Or the driver software? Seems like there are zero good alternatives for home printing. HP doing this stuff or making you subscribe to HP+. Brother offering basically zero support. Is epson or canon even competitive for a home printer?

> Brother offering basically zero support. I've had no problem finding Linux drivers for my Brother printers (or for their scanner components, since I've had all-in-ones for some time now), and they've never given me any problems that I needed any other support for.

I don't have any printers at all any more, but yeah I always found that Brother was a good choice for a cheap but still somewhat reliable network capable duplex laser printer that was pretty easy to get working in Linux.

Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

#14

Post by sundvor »

This news story could be a massive ad for something like https://www.epson.com.au/v2/ecotank/ , which came up in the Reddit thread. I saw there (Porcomaster's reply) that you can get good third party ink as well, so that's really complete freedom which deserves being celebrated in contrast to HP.

I'm on an old Epson Artisan cartridge based printer currently for colour photos, but want to replace it as they are just too painful and expensive. So meanwhile I have a cheap Brother laser printer for my black and white printing, which TBH is great for the occasional use. It's on an ultra low power sleep mode most of the time, and comes to life when it needs to.

Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

#15

Post by readingnews »

rwaksmunski wrote: post #8

17 mentions of Ecotank on the 1st page of comments is a little bit sus. That said it's hard to beat older pre chip Brother laser printers for home use. Can often find a used one for around $50.

I am amazed no one talks about older HPs. I had a 4 with like 5million pages put through it, worked great. I am on a 4300DN now, in my house, got it used. Great printer. I would never buy any of their new stuff.

My gosh, HP what happened? You used to make great test equipment. Then great calculators. Then great printers. Now, what? What do you do? Oh, I forgot, you give the customer a printer and hold them hostage. I guess it is the new business model.

Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

#16

Post by wmf »

leetrout wrote: post #3

Speaking of YC funding disruption where are the home printer startups? Is it just that unprofitable to even try? Or the hardware too difficult or tricky? Or the driver software? Seems like there are zero good alternatives for home printing. HP doing this stuff or making you subscribe to HP+. Brother offering basically zero support. Is epson or canon even competitive for a home printer?

Just buy a tank printer or Brother or whatever.

Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

#17

Post by wmf »

packetlost wrote: post #12
tiedieconderoga wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VCs tend to dislike manufacturing startups. It takes a lot of capital to get going, some time to get good yield & work out the early flaws, and there isn't much potential for a huge exit in 5-10 years. I'm more surprised that the printer market hasn't followed the security camera market, with lots of cheap and open options on markets like AliExpress that ship with phone-home firmware.

Printers are far more precise devices than you'd think. Building a camera from off the shelf Sony image sensors, slapping it in a plastic shell with a small ARM or RISC-V MCU is way easier of a design challenge than building a functioning printer.

Back in the 1990s a lot of laser printers used Canon engines so they only had to develop the RIP and the plastics. I wonder if that still exists.

Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

#18

Post by Reptur »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10
leetrout wrote: post #3

Speaking of YC funding disruption where are the home printer startups? Is it just that unprofitable to even try? Or the hardware too difficult or tricky? Or the driver software? Seems like there are zero good alternatives for home printing. HP doing this stuff or making you subscribe to HP+. Brother offering basically zero support. Is epson or canon even competitive for a home printer?

Been using Brother MFC printers for 20 years and all the software and technical documents were easily available on the website. And they are cheap enough that I would toss it if it ever broke early, but none ever have.

Yep, my Brother MFC Laserjet is 15 years old and still working great.

Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

#19

Post by fwlr »

leetrout wrote: post #3

Speaking of YC funding disruption where are the home printer startups? Is it just that unprofitable to even try? Or the hardware too difficult or tricky? Or the driver software? Seems like there are zero good alternatives for home printing. HP doing this stuff or making you subscribe to HP+. Brother offering basically zero support. Is epson or canon even competitive for a home printer?

Printers are very expensive to design, especially if you care about reliably not jamming.

Printers are kind of expensive to manufacture.

Ink is extremely cheap to manufacture.

The printer industry charges a ton for ink and uses the enormous profits from charging for ink to cover the cost of design, and to heavily subsidize the price of printers.

Competing with printer companies as a startup looks like this: you burn a bunch of VC money to get a working design, then you burn even more VC money to make and sell printers at a steep loss, and once you have established a market presence your investors look on in horror as you use it to sell a very cheap commodity product a few milliliters at a time.

Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

#20

Post by SanjayMehta »

leetrout wrote: post #3

Speaking of YC funding disruption where are the home printer startups? Is it just that unprofitable to even try? Or the hardware too difficult or tricky? Or the driver software? Seems like there are zero good alternatives for home printing. HP doing this stuff or making you subscribe to HP+. Brother offering basically zero support. Is epson or canon even competitive for a home printer?

While Canon driver support is less than exemplary, Gutenprint drivers work well for me on macOS, especially for a photo printer.

Worth checking out.

https://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_Supported_Printers.php

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