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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

#171

Post by philwelch »

atahanacar wrote: post #100
EMIRELADERO wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're letting perfect be the enemy of good. Government is not intrinsically bad. Regulations have achieved many good things. Just because there is corruption and abuses of power doesn't mean society should refrain from employing regulatory measures through their representatives. Healthy markets exist, in part, because of regulatory action, not in spite of it.

And in a democracy, you can vote the government out. With a complete monopoly in a totally free market with no regulation, what can you do? Vote with your wallet even if it means you die from starvation? The end game is either complete extinction of humanity or anyone outside the monopoly becoming a slave for it.

> And in a democracy, you can vote the government out.

Most of the government consists of unelected bureaucrats who cannot even be fired by the elected officials.

> With a complete monopoly in a totally free market with no regulation, what can you do?

Start your own competing firm. That sounds hard, sure, but try starting your own government and see how that works for you!

> Vote with your wallet even if it means you die from starvation?

The only food monopolies in history were run by governments, and they led to a lot of starvation.

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

#172

Post by 1123581321 »

autoexec wrote: post #139
1123581321 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, there were some true believers (particularly owners of regional distributors.) There were also people who were detached, but for other reasons (work to travel, overwork, weird attitudes due to headcount games, contractors only seeing dollar signs.) There were objections but perennial objectors weren't welcome in these meetings. Successful objections, moral or not, were couched in language of customer personas, market trends, market position relative to competitors, questioning the perceived value of OEM, potential alliances with other manufacturers.

When I heard the truth blurted out I don't think it was the actual truth that made them uncomfortable. What was uncomfortable was that a person had gotten into that meeting and did not know how to operate in that world. The time for long, candid talks about what the hell the industry is doing to itself was during dinner later at night--but while some of those conversations probably changed careers long term, they didn't at all change the results the following day.

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

#173

Post by kriro »

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…

In the case of HP, I think it makes sense from a business point of view. The "big money" in printers is not the printer but the refills. They are kind of the petroleum lamps of IT. One of the biggest problems from the POV of a printer company is the fact that refill/replace from different brands cuts into their profits.

The inital strategy by all companies was to point out that original ink is better in some way, then most of them tried some sorts of firmware based restrictions. HP actually tried a pretty interesting approach with their ink subscription model. They have a decent price/page with that and you don't ever have to worry about running out of ink because you automatically get a replacement cartridge if you subscribe for x$/month. The downside is that the number of pages that you are "allowed" to print each month is limited which seems pretty ridiculous at first glance for a tech person. However, if you think about "normal users" I think they actually found a good way to force them back to their ink by selling "peace of mind".

So basically, while I completely disagree with the approach because I want to use a device I buy any way I please I think HP is actually making the right business call here. The average customer cares about having an ok price/page and having a printer that always prints when they need it. I think HP is targeting that with their subscription model and also making cash flows a bit more reliable.

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

#175

Post by kasabali »

justinclift wrote: post #156
freakynit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this open up the space for a "framework laptop" like company to open up? For "open" printers? If yes, what other product categories is this applicable?

From memory, printers are a patent minefield. :(

HP Laserjets are 30+ yo. I don't think patents would be the issue.

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

#176

Post by password4321 »

ashton314 wrote: post #152
RajT88 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Have you looked at things like power line adapters? I’ve got one and it works brilliantly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication

Also MoCA (coax)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_over_Coax_Allianc...

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

#177

Post by euroderf »

passwordoops wrote: post #54
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 had an experience in another industry similar to what printers are doing. We used to use standard, easy-to-source-from-3rd-party 6-port valves on one of our instruments. Customers loved it, since the valve would need servicing now and then with replacement parts but the company president only saw lost recurring service and support revenue. To complement that perception, the VP Engineering decided "our systems shoul…

But they did not raise a stink on teh interwebz ? Bummer.

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

#178

Post by Double_a_92 »

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…

The InkJet ones are still not perfect though. E.g. mine needs to clean itself all the time, wasting my ink every 4-5 months. I understand that it regularly needs to print so it doesn't clog up, but it's going at it for minutes at a time and is horribly loud...

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

#179

Post by benj111 »

zdw wrote: post #115
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…

They tend to be repairable as well. I had to recap the power supply last year in my Brother HL-5250DN which is probably nearing the age where it's able to legally drive in the US, and after the output voltages were right again it fired right up and has been working great since.

>legally drive in the US

I'm sure it's got enough stepper motors.

Not sure about the 'legally' part though.

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

#180

Post by imhoguy »

wanderingmind wrote: post #69

For home network printing, one way to get around such nonsense it to set a wrong gateway ip to the printer. This way, your printer is still detectable on LAN network, while it can never connect to WAN (or internet) to update any firmware

Same can be achieved with parental control settings with most routers, all new devices can be cut off from the Internet by default, especially any IoT and call-home crap.

Myself I run Samsung (HP) CLP-365W for over 10 years with cracked firmware for endless refills. The hardware itself is very good, just had to rotate feeder pull rubber to fix paper problem, but that is all.

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