HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by account42 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #248

account42 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps demand for discontinued products is not uncommon. It can have other reasons than the old products being bad (e.g. I recently bought two copies of a discontinued mosue at higher-than-MSRP prices because switching to a different model costs me in time to get used to it) but I wouldn't discount it as a major factor. A lot of products really have gotten shittier replacements.

> A lot of products really have gotten shittier replacements. A perpetual pattern in humanity is this refrain coming from old people. :-) You can find examples of it from centuries ago.

A lazy response in online discussions is this idea that "old man yells at clouds" is somehow an argument for how things have not gotten worse. We are in a thread discussing an instance where a company is making their product worse FFS.

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

#252

Post by egberts1 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

Take a peek at the expansive 120+ executive staff of Hewlett Packard IPG.

Somebody needs more consumer money to pay for all that salary (cows). So, of course, they would need to milk that skinny cow even harder while making it look prettier with a lipstick. Even has a leash (software) that is too long and cumbersome to manage.

Never mind how anemic these "cows" look, they're light and still functional even when infested with bloated features that often contract virus and bacteria.

They'll keep on flogging these "cows" until it looks like a "horse", but just plain non-functional, stomach-bloated, back-arched, and ... dead.

These exec team probably knows no soul worth saving and should not be considered an asset for your budding garage company, lest they become available on labor market.

I am an old foggity whose dreams comprise of hardy folks that started these businesses out of their own home garage and a pair of ungrounded outlets.

To my garage-aspired brothers, stick with a Brothers and you can do no wrong as I've slowly replaced all my HPs with Brothers over last 2 decades.

- former faithful but disillusioned 48-year user of Hewlett Packard printers, former then roommate of former Epson device driver developer, and a device driver maintainer of the wonderful Xerox 1200 "laser" since 1987.

https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/executive-team/team....

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

#253

Post by neogodless » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:12 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #234

haylem wrote: post #170

I'm honestly a bit confused by the comments. I've had and installed only 5 home printers over my entire life (excluding professional printers at works) One was an already refurbished dinosaur from Xerox. 1 was a canon (would have to look for the model). The other 3 are HP LaserJet 100 Color MFP M175nw. All 5 have lasted over 10 years, the MFPs being the youngest at 12 years. That Xerox one was still going with after…

For the 20s wait - try moving the printer 20s away from everyone. I put one in the far corner of the living room and by the time you walk to it it’s already done printing.

Yup - printer is in my office. I don't really use it, but my spouse does. But by the time they've walked up the stairs it's usually done, so the tardiness isn't a concern.

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

#254

Post by account42 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:15 PM UTC

NoboruWataya wrote: post #185

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.

Competition forces companies to optimise for the average/majority consumer preferences. The reality is that most of the user hostile features we talk about here on HN - vendor lock-in, non-repairability, monetisation of data, etc - are not important to most consumers, who value low cost and convenience above all else.

The problem is not that consumers don't value the right things, the problem is that they are not always informed enough to make the decisions that back their values. And this lack of information is intentionally achieved by underhanded business tactics, such as selling printers at or below cost but locking them to overpriced ink in order to make them seem low cost while actually having a higher total cost.

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

#255

Post by wil421 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:19 PM UTC

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #75

ph4te wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree on the Brother printers, I’ve only had two Brothers in the past 13 years, and the only reason I upgraded was to go from Black and White Laser, to Color Laser, it was still going strong. The best part about it was you would buy a toner cartridge and when it would tell you it’s getting low, put some electrical tape over the clear hole in the side and it would continue to print for another 1.5k. On top of that I…

I still have an LCD screen Brother color laser printer that works great. The LCD is one or two lines. Works with any toner and paper and linux and wifi and I think AirDrop too (untried). It definitely is a beast but I think all color laser printers are big because they need 5 toner cartridges.

My Brothers work with Airdrop and I don’t get any weird pages that are zoomed in or some crazy alignment like I have with other printers.

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

#256

Post by wil421 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

VHRanger wrote: post #227

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #126

What's amazing about all it is that HP being hostile to its own customers is nothing new: - In 2005, they had one printer that refused to print if the cartridge was past a certain date, even if full. Several also underestimated the volume of ink in cartridges and told you it was empty when not. - In 2007, HP refused to honor hardware warranty if you install any other OS on their laptop. - in 2010, HP refused to provi…

A client of yours migrated TO Oracle in 2023? What are they smoking

I think you drastically underestimate Oracle and SAP in the enterprise world.

There’s not many companies that can provide all the mundane business management tools for a huge variety of business like an ATM manufacturer, an oil and gas company, a massive hotel chain, or a financial services company. The tech is not sexy by any means but it can run businesses from top to bottom.

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

#257

Post by egberts1 » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:32 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #187

erik_seaberg wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My HL-2140 still runs, but I can’t use it from my work laptop. Their macOS 13 drivers dropped some models.

I run a small Linux print server to expose a generic network printer that ends up printing to an older laser via CUPS. I use Proxmox now to host the print VM, but you can do this on a Raspberry Pi as well.

Ditto!

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

#258

Post by BiteCode_dev » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #256

VHRanger wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A client of yours migrated TO Oracle in 2023? What are they smoking

I think you drastically underestimate Oracle and SAP in the enterprise world. There’s not many companies that can provide all the mundane business management tools for a huge variety of business like an ATM manufacturer, an oil and gas company, a massive hotel chain, or a financial services company. The tech is not sexy by any means but it can run businesses from top to bottom.

Provided you hire an entire team of consultants for years until they change all your workflow to adapt to SAP/Oracle, then code specific routines for each role in your org because their tool cannot do most of what they say it does.

At this point, you have a completely custom stack that could have been developed entirely for half the price, that would run faster, without licensing cost. Money you could invest in hiring a company that will actually provide you support instead sending you interns they bill as experts.

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

#259

Post by zdragnar » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

otherme123 wrote: post #229

MangoCoffee wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they money in the printer is the ink. this is why HP try to block you off of third party ink.

This shouldn't make sense. It's like buying a car, and then you cannot refill unbranded gas at 1.5€/L, but at 5€/L at the official dealership. Same gas, car works exactly the same, but the car refuses to start it you put unbranded gas. No wonder the money is in the gas, tagging it at 500% the price it would get in a competitive market. The mistery is why the printers market get away with it.

> It's like buying a car

Printers are basically sold at a loss.

A more apt analogy would be selling you a laundry washer/dryer for $100 but only accepting name brand detergent pods.

Or, what Keurig tried to do to coffee, though even they sell the machines above the printers margins.

Printers get away with it because unlike your car, laundry, or coffee maker, most people don't actually use the printer very often and can't be bothered to raise a public outcry over it.

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

#260

Post by Bhilai » Wed, Mar 08, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

So I needed a new printer last year and went to the local Best Buy and picked up a reasonably priced HP printer. I got HP cartridges from Amazon. When I tried to install the cartridges, the printer kept saying they were not genuine or there was some other problem. I thought maybe Amazon seller duped me into buying counterfeits so I went to the Best Buy store where I bought the printer from and bought the 'original' HP cartridges they sell. But the printer would not accept even those so I called Best Buy geek squad folks and they asked me to bring the printer in. Best Buy folks tried several different HP original cartridges and one of them finally worked, no one knows why. Best Buy folks were apologetic and gave me a full refund on the printer and the cartridges and I swore never to buy HP printers again. Pretty happy with my Canon printer.