Earlier quoted context omitted.
> unregulated market There is no such thing as an unregulated market. The only meaningful difference is between a free market--a market that is regulated solely by the voluntary choices of market participants--and a non-free market--which is at least to some degree also regulated by rules dictated and enforced by entities who are not market participants (the most common such entities, of course, being governments). B…
Or, you know, you could shoot the wolves.
HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges
311–314 of 314 posts
Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
> unregulated market There is no such thing as an unregulated market. The only meaningful difference is between a free market--a market that is regulated solely by the voluntary choices of market participants--and a non-free market--which is at least to some degree also regulated by rules dictated and enforced by entities who are not market participants (the most common such entities, of course, being governments). B…
>There is no such thing as an unregulated market Something something semantics... something something I'm not a native English speaker something something... I will use the correct definitions from now on though, so thanks for correcting. >No, a market in which consumers are either unable to perceive quality, or are unwilling to take the time to do so (possibly for rational reasons such as the lack of time or the pro…
I absolutely agree. So the next question is, which way of organizing collaborative efforts of humans has worked better (not perfectly, just better), if we look at human history? Free markets, or governments? When I look at human history, I see free markets doing better--not because free markets are great, but because governments suck even worse.
> The best way we currently have to avoid this is to have a democratic, all inclusive government that decides what rules we should set and follow.
Sorry, but this is a myth. There is no such thing as "a democratic, all inclusive government". Government is not magic. It's some human beings being given permission to exercise arbitrary power over other human beings. Human beings cannot be trusted with that kind of power. Various ways have been tried to limit the power of governments, such as the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, etc. The invariable result is that the people in power simply find ways around the limitations. The only way to stop human beings from abusing power is to stop giving them the permission to exercise it in the first place.
I understand that, realistically, no such thing will happen any time soon. But accepting at least some government regulation because we can't avoid it because the world is imperfect and we're not going to convince everyone to implement and learn to live with full-on libertarianism tomorrow, is way, way different from thinking of government regulation as the go-to tool of first resort for solving any problem. It's not. It's the worst tool for solving problems.
> Total individuality
This is also a myth. Nobody can totally support themselves with just their individual efforts. Well, perhaps there are a few edge cases living totally off the grid in a forest somewhere, but they're not going to be posting here and they're not going to be impinging on other people's lives anyway so we can ignore them.
The people who abuse power do not do it by "total individuality". They do it by co-opting, through corrupt institutions, huge numbers of other people to further their abuses. Those institutions did not get the power they have, which the people then abuse, through a free market. They got it through governments (in many cases the institutions are governments, or governmental institutions). In an actual free market, the kinds of abuses of power we routinely see in government-run societies could not exist, because the institutions and the implied permission of power that comes with them would not exist. People who want to do something collectively in a free market have to convince other people to help them by trading things of actual value. That's how a free market works: if you don't have something worth trading, people simply ignore you. You don't have the option of saying, hey, I'm in a position of power, you have to do what I say. And so people are forced to stop exercising their "total individuality" and actually cooperate with others.
Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the key answer here, i switched from a HP to a brother everything just works now, and i dont have to download 1gb "driver packages". Hp is the worst company for any hardware needs, all their laptops/dektops sucked so much, back in the day in my electronics shop they where the ones with the worst return/faults rate, by a big margin.
What HP actually shines is their "FreeDOS" (i.e. Linux) workstations. They're like the total opposite of their printers, since they grant the owner a reasonable amount of control and outstanding performance at rock bottom prices. Google buys these things for all their employees, which is all the proof I needed that HP as an OEM isn't doing anything creepy to these workstations before shipping them from the factory. Y…
Re: HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges
#314I'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.
It's a good tip, though. But with mobile phones now, people tend to start printing already on their way to the room and then stare at the printer and wonder if it's OFF, starting up, pending, or if for some reason it decided whatever PDF they were printing was a bit too annoying to print (I do have occasional buffering issues with some of these printers, as I suspect their available memory/disk storage isn't great).