HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash • Hacker News Board

Re: HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash

#121

Post by YurgenJurgensen » Tue, Jul 09, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #43

mrweasel wrote: post #34

What I find extremely annoying is that no one is charge saw this coming. How stupid do you need to be to release an online-only subscription laser printer? Somewhere in the HP hierarchy reality is removed. I feel like at least one of the lower level people saw this coming. Somewhere in the management layers this became a good idea, an idea completely removed from reality. The only logic that makes sense is that you h…

> no one is charge saw this coming They just don’t care. Corporate tactics 101 - push limits until someone screams bloody murder. It’s the big corporate equivalent of move fast and Break things that is so beloved of SV

There's a secondary result from this strategy: If you only listen when people scream bloody murder, you train everyone to freak out over every little thing because it's the only way they have any evidence that their views are being taken into account.

Re: HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash

#122

Post by YurgenJurgensen » Tue, Jul 09, 2024, 2:17 PM UTC

pantalaimon wrote: post #88

mrweasel wrote: post #34

What I find extremely annoying is that no one is charge saw this coming. How stupid do you need to be to release an online-only subscription laser printer? Somewhere in the HP hierarchy reality is removed. I feel like at least one of the lower level people saw this coming. Somewhere in the management layers this became a good idea, an idea completely removed from reality. The only logic that makes sense is that you h…

I wonder why nobody yet had the idea to offer an ad-based alternative to the paid subscription. Just print a few pages of ads before every print job.

You're not thinking with enough buzzwords: The printer has AI and it inserts the ads into your prints.

Re: HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash

#123

Post by anal_reactor » Tue, Jul 09, 2024, 2:27 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #91

anal_reactor wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I find extremely annoying is that no one is charge saw this coming. How stupid do you need to be to release an online-only subscription laser printer? How is it possible that Putin wasn't aware of the state of Russian army on the eve of the invasion? Is it possible that all generals constantly lied to him because he killed everyone who disagreed with him and surrounded himself with yes-men, creating an alterna…

Has this had any actual real negative consequences for Putin though?

We'll never get insight into Putin's mind and any explanation why he decided to launch an invasion. Depending on his motives and goals, you can say he got a slap on a wrist, or that he gambled all and lost all.

Re: HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash

#124

Post by zrobotics » Tue, Jul 09, 2024, 2:30 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #104

michaelt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I find extremely annoying is that no one is charge saw this coming. How stupid do you need to be to release an online-only subscription laser printer? Believe it or not, a lot of large organisations opt into systems like this. A cloud-based print queue lets you tie printing to your single-sign-on system, bill each print to the right department, and simplify sending the print to the right printer. If you can ha…

> Believe it or not, a lot of large organisations opt into systems like this. The way you describe it, I can see that being a viable product. To some extend this could be HP so focused on a very niche segment, like Microsoft with Recall, that HP+ actually seems like a sensible idea. They then forget about the fact that this is just a small segment of they customer base, but they don't really communicate with the rest…

The odd thing is that this business model is super old in the industry, going back before computers were common in offices. That is how a ton of copiers were supplied, either sold with a service contract or just rented. That continued for a long time, even for small offices this was fairly common until in the 2010s when laser printers got ridiculously cheap.

However, I'm not aware of these services being offered directly from the manufacturer, it seemed to be via local office supply houses that were dealers for the manufacturers. That being said, this service was probably available direct from the manufacturers for large organizations.

ETA: One thing I didn't mention that I feel is the main reason the service contract model went away is that printers are cheap enough it doesn't make tons of sense to service vs replace. We still have a service contract with guaranteed fix/replacement times for our specialized zebra printers at work. Still makes sense on a 3k+ printer that you can't buy locally off the shelf.

Re: HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash

#125

Post by YurgenJurgensen » Tue, Jul 09, 2024, 2:36 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #31

ogou wrote: post #9

I found one these all-in-one units out on sidewalk and thought I had scored a cool freebie. It was nearly new. Now I know why they threw it away. Total garbage and bricked without that HP+ subscription. Can't use the scanner because the ink is too low. The worst part is that I couldn't even reset the printer to use a new subscription! It was tied to the previous owner at a hardware level and support said I had to con…

In Germany, walk down the street to the print shop with a USB drive and give them about 10 cents per page.

There's significant overlap between the few things it's now necessary to print (mainly official forms), and things I wouldn't trust to some clerk at some random print shop, or whatever junk PC they're running the printer off.

That PC is prime malware target (easy access vector since anyone can pay a few Euros to put a USB device into it, lots of opportunity for identity theft, plus the chance of accidental infection from all the thousands of random USB sticks it'll see in its lifetme), and there's no way the employees are security-conscious enough to engage in the appropriate mitigations (re-imaging the PC every day). And the scenario of the print shop employee (probably not paid very much) earning extra cash on the side by selling any valuable personal details they get isn't unimaginable.

Re: HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash

#126

Post by kristopolous » Tue, Jul 09, 2024, 2:46 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #96

kristopolous wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if printing didn't suck enough already. There's plenty of innovation left. What about a built-in cutting, binding or folding mechanism? What about a built-in QR like binary converter for paper backing up of crucial files and some way to feed them back in through ADF scanning? What about a built-in filter to printer feature of email so things like orders get auto printed? Something that has heat transfer built-in f…

> What about a built-in cutting, binding or folding mechanism? You can get that on some really high end office copiers. It's mechanically complex though and takes up space. > What about a built-in QR like binary converter for paper backing up of crucial files and some way to feed them back in through ADF scanning? You can get massively more information density and reliability from optical media. > What about a built-…

Yes, you can scuttle and quash whatever. Almost every massively successful tech product can be given the same treatment from the IBM PC to Microsoft Windows to the iPhone.

And there were plenty of people who clicked their heels saying "there's nothing new here!" when the iPod, YouTube or Instagram came out. I used to be among them.

You can also "but wait, there's more" those products and go back and forth and say how different and unique they are. Nest, Ring, Roku, Kindle, Uber, Airbnb...

It's a game. You either take a risk and make a splash with a consumer-friendly, consumer-form factor, consumer-priced version of something or you don't.

There's no modern printer people love and nothing in one they can get at say, Best Buy, they couldn't get 20 years ago. They're all frustrating plastic things sitting in the corner.

Making innovative, actually great printers people are excited about is a product opportunity. Brother is close, but they're the Zune. Nobody's iPhoned it.

Re: HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash

#127

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 09, 2024, 2:56 PM UTC

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #67

impendia wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I find extremely annoying is that no one is charge saw this coming. I remember when US airlines started charging for checked baggage. Many more people started carrying on their bags, resulting in slower boarding and deplaning, and therefore problems for the airlines. I read an interview with an executive at one of the airlines, saying that he didn't see this coming and was taken totally by surprise. I am bewil…

> I am bewildered at how these people rise to positions of authority without even the most basic ability to predict obvious consumer behavior. Me too. It seems to be some kind of selective blindness as they'll happily pay advertising money in an effort to influence consumers and then not realise that consumers are influenced by product changes too.

[deleted]

Re: HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash

#128

Post by vel0city » Tue, Jul 09, 2024, 3:23 PM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #126

vel0city wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about a built-in cutting, binding or folding mechanism? You can get that on some really high end office copiers. It's mechanically complex though and takes up space. > What about a built-in QR like binary converter for paper backing up of crucial files and some way to feed them back in through ADF scanning? You can get massively more information density and reliability from optical media. > What about a built-…

Yes, you can scuttle and quash whatever. Almost every massively successful tech product can be given the same treatment from the IBM PC to Microsoft Windows to the iPhone. And there were plenty of people who clicked their heels saying "there's nothing new here!" when the iPod, YouTube or Instagram came out. I used to be among them. You can also "but wait, there's more" those products and go back and forth and say how…

Are you arguing that if Brother would just add MQTT support (whatever that would look like) or IR scanning (once again, what's the consumer use for this?) they'd have the next iPhone on their hands?

HP has had the "print to email" function you ask for since at least the late 00's (that's when I first saw it). They discontinued it on their newer models because nobody cared. Brother and Epson have this functionality as well. I imagine most consumer printer platforms support such a feature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_ePrint

https://help.brother-usa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/158082/...

https://www.epsonconnect.com/guide/en/html/uses_1.htm

And you can add binding support to your printer if you want to. Here's a link to a binder add-on. Think its this big because they just felt like making it big, or because its mechanically a somewhat complex process to fold and bind stacks of paper?

https://www.xerox.com/en-us/digital-printing/feeders-print-f...

If you do reply to this comment, I'd genuinely like to know what you'd do with a flatbed or ADF scanner that can scan IR and UV.

About the only feature I'd imagine a decent chunk of consumers would like that doesn't already exist would be for it to also automatically trim/cut things for you, à la Cricut. But while a Cricut looks a lot like a printer, it functions radically differently. It is made to move the cutting board back and forth and requires the material to be cut to be affixed to the board. There's a lot more setup involved than just pulling a page from the tray and pushing it through with rollers. Adding a cutting edge to a normal printer path would probably end up with lots of paper jams and debris stuck in the printer. A Cricut is way more like a 3D printer than a laser/inkjet printer.

Re: HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash

#129

Post by kristopolous » Tue, Jul 09, 2024, 3:52 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #128

kristopolous wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can scuttle and quash whatever. Almost every massively successful tech product can be given the same treatment from the IBM PC to Microsoft Windows to the iPhone. And there were plenty of people who clicked their heels saying "there's nothing new here!" when the iPod, YouTube or Instagram came out. I used to be among them. You can also "but wait, there's more" those products and go back and forth and say how…

Are you arguing that if Brother would just add MQTT support (whatever that would look like) or IR scanning (once again, what's the consumer use for this?) they'd have the next iPhone on their hands? HP has had the "print to email" function you ask for since at least the late 00's (that's when I first saw it). They discontinued it on their newer models because nobody cared. Brother and Epson have this functionality as…

I'm arguing it's a game and one I don't play anymore.

Consumers aren't infinitely rational homo-economicus logicians and discussing products as if they are is irrelevant.

People might buy into the UV and IR just because they could. It doesn't have to be practical and they don't have to ever use it.

The modern iPhone: No removable battery, too big for pockets, cash cow of a multi trillion dollar company, lacks a headphone port, needs a proprietary charger... Doesn't matter. Products have features. Features aren't a product.

Successful products feel like their own thing that also services the need they're intended for. Xerox used to occupy that space for printing. It's mostly vacant now.

Re: HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash

#130

Post by vel0city » Tue, Jul 09, 2024, 4:25 PM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #129

vel0city wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you arguing that if Brother would just add MQTT support (whatever that would look like) or IR scanning (once again, what's the consumer use for this?) they'd have the next iPhone on their hands? HP has had the "print to email" function you ask for since at least the late 00's (that's when I first saw it). They discontinued it on their newer models because nobody cared. Brother and Epson have this functionality as…

I'm arguing it's a game and one I don't play anymore. Consumers aren't infinitely rational homo-economicus logicians and discussing products as if they are is irrelevant. People might buy into the UV and IR just because they could. It doesn't have to be practical and they don't have to ever use it. The modern iPhone: No removable battery, too big for pockets, cash cow of a multi trillion dollar company, lacks a headp…

> They're all frustrating plastic things sitting in the corner.

> There's plenty of innovation left.

> Lists a bunch of features that either already exist or have no practical application

You're telling me there's lots of meat on the bone for innovation but then I'm not actually seeing anything that hasn't already existed that would make them not the same frustrating plastic things in the corner they are today.

Maybe it's just a marketing thing? I imagine most people wouldn't know a lot of the printers at Best Buy support print by email, clearly you didn't already know that was a thing. Stuff like IPP and AirPrint makes printing to a random network printer stupid simple without needing additional apps or whatever, but it seems every time I print from my phone it blows peoples' minds that I didn't have to plug in a cable. Other than HP consumer printers, generally printers I've used in at least Windows and Linux just work. Plug them into the network or add them to the WiFi, and then every computer in the home can see it and it works without needing to install 500MB of drivers and additional software.

Maybe not every product market has obvious innovations that are useful to consumers. Maybe sometimes things get mature. I'm not seeing a lot of innovation in forks or whatever. Generally, printers these days are pretty reliable. You can get them pretty dang tiny if you want. They can have pretty insane resolution for most consumer needs. They can talk wirelessly with highly standardized APIs that pretty much any computer or phone or tablet can talk.