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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

#101

Post by karaterobot »

fwlr wrote: post #19
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…

I think you're right about that, but it feels like there's a different approach you could take if you were willing to not be a billion dollar company. If you wanted to run a small printer manufacturer, with a hundred people or so, you could design a printer once, sell it for enough to cover most of the cost of manufacturing (but not the loss leader pricing of an HP), then sell the ink for cost plus whatever percentage makes you profitable.

If the main cost is design, then limit the design. Don't come out with a new model every year. Don't have a dozen products. Sell a color laser printer with USB-C and wifi, that's it. Have a black and white SKU if needed. What other major innovations in printer technology do we need?

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

#103

Post by sundvor »

midoridensha wrote: post #99
sundvor wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a HP LaserJet 4L back in the very early 90s, which I used with my Amiga. It was amazing. Still regret not taking it with me as I crossed the continents. I bought it with my own money from my newspaper delivery job when in high school, along with a legitimate copy of Pagestream. The quality and value / advantage I got out of this for my school and later university work was remarkable, just about no-one else (at…

>Still regret not taking it with me as I crossed the continents. It probably wouldn't have worked on other continents due to different voltage and frequency. You'd need a huge and expensive adapter (laser printers use a LOT of power when printing). Back in the 90s, they didn't have adapters that could convert frequency. Generally, it's best to leave high-power appliances (or sell on Ebay) when you move between contin…

Australia is on the same voltage and frequency (230v/50hz) as Norway, just need a straight plug adaptor.

My Rotel system from 1997 is humming along just fine to this date. :)

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

#105

Post by sciencesama »

thewebcount wrote: post #58
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 just upgraded my computer and now my older Brother can’t scan anymore because Brother isn’t supporting it anymore. (And the app they point you to for scanning also doesn’t support it.) There are some 3rd party tools you can install apparently, but I don’t know if I want to be bothered with how much time that’s likely to take. I don’t want to support them anymore now that they’ve added a chip to their newer models,…

just get the ip address of the printer and you can scan from the ip address.

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

#106

Post by dalyons »

grecy wrote: post #90
Algemarin wrote: post #29

What I find notable whenever something like this is in the news, is that these user-hostile features don't just manifest through abiogenesis, or spontaneous generation. User-hostile features are created by people. Just once, I would like to see an AMA by someone who was directly involved in creating a user-hostile feature - whether it's locking down printers or any of the countless other examples that come up on a we…

> Just once, I would like to see an AMA by someone who was directly involved in creating a user-hostile feature I worked for a large Telco and wrote and maintained the software and system(s) that calculated internet usage, and charged overages monthly. (The home internet plans sold by this telco that service a massive landmass all had hard usage caps. There is no competition). I saw many, many monthly internet overag…

Telstra?

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

#107

Post by erikerikson »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #36
Algemarin wrote: post #29

What I find notable whenever something like this is in the news, is that these user-hostile features don't just manifest through abiogenesis, or spontaneous generation. User-hostile features are created by people. Just once, I would like to see an AMA by someone who was directly involved in creating a user-hostile feature - whether it's locking down printers or any of the countless other examples that come up on a we…

> just want to understand why other people engage in behaviors which are explicitly designed to inconvenience, if not outright harm, other people These questions should be posed to executives at shareholder meetings. not cogs in the machine. When was an evil feature ever stopped by rank and file workers?

Regardless of any feelings one might towards Google, they rather publicly lost a big contact with the military due to worker revolt.

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

#109

Post by lbwtaylor »

rektide wrote: post #76
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.

There was a flagged post on EcoTank yesterday, that was basically an ad with no news. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35040214 My comment is currently I believe the top comment there, talking about how these things have a designed-to-fail Ink Waste Tank or Ink Waste Pad, and an internal Ink Counter that locks up the printer after a certain amount of printing. I'm not 100% absolutely certain, but I've ran into nu…

> designed-to-fail Ink Waste Tank or Ink Waste Pad

Then buy one with a replaceable pad like the Epson 5150. The replacement costs....drum roll ... $10.

My last color laser had a non serviceable fuser rated for 20,000 pages and that's what I got out of it.

I replaced it with a color ecotank and it's just a better product. Look up the price of my ink vs the price of comparible color toner and there is simply no comparison. Even color toner generics, which are not perfect, are more expensive.

It's fine to have scepticism over ink printers, or any printers. But it's not all rainbows and sunshine with other options either (other than a basic black laser I guess)

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

#110

Post by happymellon »

pc86 wrote: post #94
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is you'd expect companies should also compete to remove such anti-features in order to claim market share from competitors. It's strange how rare that is.

People don't care. They talk about caring, but when push comes to shove 90% of consumers will buy whatever is cheapest at that moment. If your $200 printer that will let you use whatever ink and whatever cartridge you want is competing with a $189 HP printer that will lock you in to its nonsense, HP is going to eat your lunch all day every day. Because the simple fact of the matter is that if people did care, what yo…

It's not like it isn't talked about on general TV.

In the UK here I remember it being a question on the panel quiz show QI, about being the most expensive liquid on earth.

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