Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

old.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 314 posts

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

#131

Post by moring »

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…

People don't even have a simple way to find out. How are you supposed to get reliable information on what printers block third-party ink? How are you even supposed to know that blocking third-party ink is a thing?

BTW whenever these "how are you supposed to" things are pointed out, people are quick to say "just use ..." with several conflicting recommendations, which actually doesn't counter but support the point that finding out isn't easy.

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

#132

Post by kube-system »

dv_dt wrote: post #117
kube-system wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Printers are pretty difficult to manufacture compared to a laptop. They have specialized high precision parts and a lot of mechanical parts that have to work together for a particular design. A laptop can be pretty much made from off the shelf parts aside from the chassis and PCB, which you can easily have made by any number of contractors. And I’m sure printers are probably a minefield of patents.

HP LaserJets that were considered tanks were sourced from Canon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_LaserJet So it makes it not impossible for a new manufacturer to incorporate interface electronics with a core from an experienced manufacturer. The most difficult part might not be the engineering, but getting one of the old line print companies to do business at some reasonable cost with a smaller startup company.

I suspect Canon licensed that technology to HP rather than letting it be used openly. You might be able to do the same but you’ll just be another proprietary printer company.

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

#133

Post by Woodi »

Here in small bakery office we was happy with simple HP 1018/1020/1022 and didn't wanted anything more featureful. Or crapfull. But sometimes they stop printing - usually with new cups update. So after 20 years back and forth (with trips to Brother and Epson) we will switch to plain dumb Postscript printers (not as dumb as win printers) - just: lpr docname And it will not be HP.

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

#134

Post by cricalix »

RajT88 wrote: post #127
lchengify wrote: post #23

For those of you who haven't already, I highly recommend just biting the bullet and switching from HP to Brother for your home printing needs. I was a HP customer for decades . I had models going back to perforated paper dot-matrix printers. Finally last year I had a down-and-out fight to get my HP to do a basic task, and I bit the bullet and ordered a Brother at the recommendation of my friend. My mfc-l3750cdw Broth…

I recently bought an old Brother laserjet for 100 bucks off Craigslist. The guy thought he was scamming me, because the autofeed tray didn't work. I'll get that fixed in due time. But the manual feed tray which still takes a stack of 15-20 pages works fine. The bigger issue is my wife tells me I can't drill another hole for an Ethernet jack for it and have to make it wireless...

Do you need it to be available over wireless for direct printing, or just on the network without making holes? If it's the latter, are you aware of Ethernet over power (aka powerline networking)?

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

#136

Post by fbdab103 »

moring wrote: post #131
pc86 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

People don't even have a simple way to find out. How are you supposed to get reliable information on what printers block third-party ink? How are you even supposed to know that blocking third-party ink is a thing? BTW whenever these "how are you supposed to" things are pointed out, people are quick to say "just use ..." with several conflicting recommendations, which actually doesn't counter but support the point tha…

Shopping for the optimal product is nearly impossible today with fake reviews, swapped product listings, silent part swaps without model changes, shrink-wrapped EULA-like devil bargins (can't use the dishwasher without installing an app requiring your contact list), etc. Not to mention the number of times a company is actively deceiving users with misleading language (eg I no longer know what TDP means).

I find this is why I am increasingly outsourcing my purchasing decisions to Costco. It may not be the best option, but I typically only have to pick from ~3 models, and it was good enough for them to stock it on the shelves. More skin in the game than just a digital listing.

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

#138

Post by grecy »

dalyons wrote: post #106
grecy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

No, imagine zero competition. Not a single other possibility of internet in a building, except for one company, tens of thousands of customers, many, many, many towns.

(excluding Hughesnet... which was catastrophically bad)

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

#139

Post by autoexec »

1123581321 wrote: post #70
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…

I’ve seen these kinds of decisions being made. They believe they’re worth it, their product is good enough to have a premium total ownership cost. They believe businesses want OEM. They believe they’re preventing consumers from making expensive mistakes. They believe they need to shut out low cost market entrants that begin with a supplemental product. By believe I mean that’s what their gut tells them, and their dat…

Do you think they really believe those things or are those just the things they say to convince themselves and each other that what they are doing is fine while deep down they know that it's wrong and that they're acting out of greed and are making the world worse.

> Advocating for consumer welfare or improving the industry reputation falls completely flat. They don’t believe it’s what the market wants. Or they just bluster, or look annoyed and make sure that person’s manager fixes the meeting invites.

Everybody wants to think of themselves as a good guy which means sometimes they have to come up with insane and unconvincing excuses to justify their evils. They are bound to feel uncomfortable when someone tells them the truth by advocating for the customer. They can still take the money by screwing over other people, but it means they can't do it while pretending that it doesn't make them assholes.

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

#140

Post by midoridensha »

sundvor wrote: post #103
midoridensha wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. :)

Right, it depends on which two places you're moving between. Your device probably won't work well in North America, for instance, or in Japan. (In NA, it might be workable if the device doesn't care about line frequency since it's 60Hz there. In Japan, it'll work if 200V is close enough, but that's a significant difference from 230V. And the line frequency is only the same if you're in Tokyo or east of it.)
Post reply on HN