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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

#251

Post by josephcsible »

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…

A fine would totally work if it were big enough, e.g., 100% of the revenue of every affected printer and corresponding ink cartridge ever sold.

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

#252

Post by chrisweekly »

I got tired of the user-hostile shenanigans, bad software, low-quality output, and high TCO (5 or 6 HP or Canon devices over the years), finally came to my senses and bought a Brother. It "Just Works", is fast and quiet and reliable, does exactly what it's supposed to, and is in such stark contrast to the typically terrible printer UX it's almost funny.

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

#253

Post by fwlr »

trampi wrote: post #139
pknopf wrote: post #56

I'll never forget how confused I was when my HP printer kept printing ads, randomly. Turns out, it was an official practice by HP. I'll never use any of their products again.

That sounds like pure horror to me. I haven't heard of this before. Can you provide a source to back this claim?

I hadn’t heard of this before either. A quick search (miraculously, Google still sometimes works for me) indicates two separate phenomena: one is that HP did intend to insert printed ads when you use some of their automated print options (https://www.computerworld.com/article/2519039/hp-partners-wi...), and the other is that some HP printers are “web-enabled” in the sense that emails to a certain printer email address will automatically be printed, and the default access settings allow spam ads which then get automatically printed (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Mobile-Printing-Cloud-Printing...)

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

#254

Post by AndrewKemendo »

scarface74 wrote: post #186
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And Berkshire Hathaway has an outsize position in the largest of them, HP.

What else does BRK own, and thus influence via board and activist shareholder position that is in your home.

This is the point. You can have a million “options” but if they all only benefit a handful of owners then no matter how you “vote” with your dollars it still makes the same people the same money.

Again, you have to go to extremes to find a printer that is manufactured by a union or employee owned cooperative if there even are any.

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

#255

Post by local_crmdgeon »

makeitdouble wrote: post #246
DiabloD3 wrote: post #35

Did you know Brother makes really good printers that are inexpensive and live a long, happy, life? And their drivers aren't user hostile? This is one of those really good "vote with your wallets" situations.

> This is one of those really good "vote with your wallets" situations. This is a really good situation for actual voting, like actual political action to have regulation, instead of pretend voting. HP probably doesn't give a damn about the HN crowd, it won't affect their business line in the little, so there's no signaling here. And assuming Brother gets enough of a loyal following, they can now (probably already ar…

Hard disagree. This is how Chrome won the browser wars - people ask their nerdy cousin which browser to use.

The market of HN is small, but the market power is large. Also, I guarantee you people here make large corporate purchases for things like printers, networking equipment - stuff HP cares about.

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

#256

Post by local_crmdgeon »

galleywest200 wrote: post #121
DiabloD3 wrote: post #35

Did you know Brother makes really good printers that are inexpensive and live a long, happy, life? And their drivers aren't user hostile? This is one of those really good "vote with your wallets" situations.

Brother is great unless you need to configure it to fax over VoIP. I recall horror stories from my technical support days. Had to walk users, over the phone, through navigating to the settings and then changing a binary (literally) value. > Ok now it says 01101101 and I need you to change it to 10001111. Something to that effect. Ew.

To be fair, that's a truly niche usecase.

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

#257

Post by mcv »

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..

Poor people sometimes go to prison for far smaller crimes than this. The problem is that far too often, rich and powerful people are only held accountable if they hurt other rich and powerful people.

And if it's a million $80 printers affected by this, it's an $80 million crime.

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

#258

Post by local_crmdgeon »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #207
snvzz wrote: post #116

Where are the Open Source Hardware printers? Literally everybody (except printer makers) hates the printer landscape. All we'd need is to pool money to design a cost-effective open source hardware modular monochrome laser printer with open firmware.

Monochrome lasers aren't a big problem if you shop properly. You can do fine with a 1990s era laserjet. The bigger headache is color inkjets, and the ink they consume.

A home color inkjet won't do justice basically any photo, to be fair. You'll have a better time buying a B&W document printer then going to your local photo printing shop for high quality work.

Plus, you'll probably meet cool people.

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

#259

Post by pengaru »

amluto wrote: post #111
kerkeslager wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate fines just end up being passed on to workers who had nothing to do with the decision. "We had to (lay off 10% of our workforce|cut worker pay by 10%|etc.) because of these unfair fines." Corporations aren't people--they can't make the decision to do unethical things. Yes, I understand the law, I'm saying the law is incorrect. People do unethical things, and people should be held responsible for their action…

If you can run a successful business by selling $100 objects that cost $20 each to make and result in an average of $90 of fines per sale, and make it up by mistreating your workers, I applaud you.

Does being Too Big To Fail and getting government bailouts count as successful?
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