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HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

#181

Post by ClumsyPilot »

crazygringo wrote: post #85
mcny wrote: post #12

The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this because it just becomes the cost of doing business. No, you can’t say it wasn’t your decision. If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express wr…

Why not send top stockholders to prison while you're at it? And regional managers as well? And the stores that sell the printers too? No, prison makes zero sense. When people agree to a business contract and one side fails to uphold their end of the bargain, the remedy should remain financial. And punitive remedies exist precisely to make sure the "cost of doing business" makes it no longer profitable. And if that's…

> When people agree to a business contract and one side fails to uphold their end of the bargain, the remedy should remain financial

Not at all - when one party intends to cheat another, we call that fraud and we do send people to jail for this regularly.

Re: HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

#182

Post by rqtwteye »

mcny wrote: post #12

The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this because it just becomes the cost of doing business. No, you can’t say it wasn’t your decision. If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express wr…

Make them pay the fines personally. They take credit and make big money when employees do the right thing, so let's make it a two way street. Once their net worth gets wiped, maybe they will get the message.

Re: HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

#183

Post by torstenvl »

emodendroket wrote: post #160
armchairhacker wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How the heck would you create such a law with no unintended consequences? “If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express written orders.” So if a low-wage worker goes mad and kills his coworker the CEO should be charged with murder? What if his salary got cut and it was a customer? Where do you dr…

Step one would probably be making this practice illegal in the first place, which, as far as I can tell, it isn't. Putting the cart before the horse to worry about who's liable for doing something legal.

Not my practice area, and I don't know all the facts. But if they sold printers and later disable those printers, it doesn't strike me as unreasonable to treat that as a fraud or swindle in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341, or as an unfair or deceptive trade practice under 15 U.S.C. § 45.

If this were anything other than tech - if, say, IKEA sold you a bed frame that disintegrated the moment you used a non-IKEA mattress or comforter - I don't think the government would be so blasé about it.

(EDIT: Perhaps less of a case if the printer merely won't work with those cartridges rather than actually being disabled.)

Re: HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

#184

Post by alphanullmeric »

Bran_son wrote: post #175
alphanullmeric wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether I consent to something has little to do with the law. I would hope that the law upholds consent, but as we see in the EU, it doesn’t.

The company consented to have its contracts limited by continuing to do business in the EU.

As did the gays consent to not marrying, or does “you consent if we voted for it” only apply when you like the vote?

Re: HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

#185

Post by RealityVoid »

newmanah223 wrote: post #171

You could just not buy an HP printer. I use older Brother laserjet printers that I bought secondhand. A pack of 2 off-brand toner cartridges are about $20 on ebay. Enough people are dumb enough to overpay for ink that HP stays in business. Jailing a CEO won't cure stupidity.

Louis Rossman had a video about exactly this kind of attitude, and he persuaded me that it's not a good one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN44n_F_CPo

Please do watch it.

His point is that this kind of horrible kind of practices corrupt and spread through industries so they need to be dealt with ASAP if you want to prevent it becoming standard.

Besides, you can't be savvy about all fields. Sure, you know about printers, but how many other facets of life you're NOT familiar with and you're duped in making choices that disadvantages you.

Re: HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

#186

Post by scarface74 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #168
crazygringo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there's nothing naive about it at all. I'm not making a specific political endorsement here, but if voters elect candidates like e.g. Elizabeth Warren to Congress then you get much stronger consumer protections, corporate lobbying be damned. I'm not saying corporate lobbying has zero influence (that would be naive), but if the electorate chooses to care about something, it trumps corporations. This is actually a…

The idea that there’s cornucopias of choice in day to day life for 99% of Americans is absurd You have to go to extraordinary and extreme measures to break out of the basic choices that you are offered for which the profits all go to the same group of people There is basically Zero diversity in the corporate landscape for either consumers or workers. Maybe even if that’s the trend, let’s choose not all live in a pvp…

> You have to go to extraordinary and extreme measures to break out of the basic choices that you are offered for which the profits all go to the same group of people

In this case we are talking about printers. There are literally dozens of printer makers.

Re: HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

#187

Post by Xeoncross »

mcny wrote: post #12

The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this because it just becomes the cost of doing business. No, you can’t say it wasn’t your decision. If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express wr…

Punishment should fit the crime. We don't over-punish people to force them to think differently, that has always led to dark periods in history.

There are plenty of low-friction ways consumers could be reimbursed plus the cost of lost time or energy spent on a now 'broken' printer if we wanted to solve this in a fair way.

Re: HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

#188

Post by ClumsyPilot »

detrites wrote: post #79
mcny wrote: post #12

The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this because it just becomes the cost of doing business. No, you can’t say it wasn’t your decision. If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express wr…

While I generally agree, there's something more immediate. All of us having this view can refuse to ever buy or even use HP products, and explain to anyone and everyone at every opportunity exactly why this is. Boycotts can be immensely powerful, and strike fear into the hearts of those who would exploit us. Personally, I will never buy an HP product again. Absolute, permanent blacklist. It's simply way too disgustin…

> Boycotts can be immensely powerful, and strike fear into the hearts of those who would exploit us.

I cannot find a single example of a successful boycott in my lifetime. Can you?

Re: HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

#189

Post by alphanullmeric »

Bran_son wrote: post #150
alphanullmeric wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do your part and say no. Unlike the EU, we won’t make that illegal.

> Do your part and say no. I'll do my part and vote to make it illegal, and not reduce myself to a mere consumer. Just like companies don't, and lobby for restrictive patent laws. What happens when one side limits itself to just (individual) consumer choices, while the other uses all political and organizational means available to gain an advantage? In other words, if two players play a game, and one of them limits t…

Yeah we’ve already established that you want to place restrictions on consent. I also don’t support patents, see what a bit of consistency does for you?

I am precisely saying countries are less legitimate than individuals. Governments hold and use their monopoly on force, they do not follow the rules they impose on those they govern. SpaceX can’t claim Mars and beat down anyone that challenges them, and yet that is exactly how most state borders came to be today. But again, if you’re willing to be consistent, then socialists should feel free to move to Cuba, else they consent to living under capitalism.

Re: HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

#190

Post by [deleted] »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #18
mcny wrote: post #12

The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this because it just becomes the cost of doing business. No, you can’t say it wasn’t your decision. If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express wr…

Prison time? For bricking an $80 printer unless you use specific parts? I don't think so. Let's try to stay on planet earth here..

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