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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

#361

Post by ryao »

lazide wrote: post #245
scarface_74 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Brother doing now? I haven’t heard that with Brother printers and I had one for years.

Some of their software started to get pushy, and their toner cartridges started to ‘be empty’ too early - with some new printers also having ‘trial’ toners with almost no toner in them. Mellow compared to the alternatives.

Canon does not do this. They also let you opt into the feature that blocks third party cartridges. You read that right. The feature is opt-in.

Coincidentally, many HP and Canon laser printers use slight variations of the same toner cartridges such that third parties can support both printers with the same cartridges:

https://www.shop.xerox.com/supplies-accessories?brand=6346

I am curious if this is also true for the inkjet printers, but finding out would probably involve buying every cartridge and comparing. I cannot justify that expense to sate my curiosity.

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

#362

Post by ryao »

joering2 wrote: post #155
wongarsu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or buy a laser printer. They cost a bit more upfront, but a single toner cartridge lasts ages (and won't dry out or get used up in cleaning cycles), the printers are generally much more robust and longer lasting, and because laser printing isn't as patent-encumbered there's more actual competition and less outright user-hostile behavior.

I would like to vouch for Xerox laser printers. Not only they don't identify your printouts with tiny yellow markings/serial number, but also they gladly accept off-market toners, and places like Amazon have many different brands that race to the bottom of price making it easy to try out what works for you. I am on my third Xerox laser printer and couldn't be happier.

Their low end models are just rebadged Lexmark printers while their high models are rebadged Samsung printers (the same IP that is now owned by HP).

It is a shame that they stopped developing their own models.

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

#363

Post by ryao »

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…

Brother already started doing that. You could go with Canon instead.

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

#364

Post by ryao »

makeitdouble wrote: post #328
local_crmdgeon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have you ever been asked what printer to buy ? I have family members ask to _fix_ their printers, never had one actually taking advice before buying one nor follow advice. And the reason is simple: - Google has a tremendous positive brand image in most people's mind, Brother means nothing outside of the elderly generation. - Printers are seen as a commodity and get thrown at people for 30 bucks at the supermarket. Th…

What are you thoughts about Canon? I just brought one recently. It has an option for me to opt into disabling support for third party toner cartridges. You read that correctly. It lets you use third party toner cartridges by default and if I do not want to be able to use them, I can opt into disabling them.

On the other hand, Brother prevents cartridges from being reused more than once, which likely kills the market for remanufactured toner cartridges.

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

#365

Post by ryao »

sgc wrote: post #64
wongarsu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or buy a laser printer. They cost a bit more upfront, but a single toner cartridge lasts ages (and won't dry out or get used up in cleaning cycles), the printers are generally much more robust and longer lasting, and because laser printing isn't as patent-encumbered there's more actual competition and less outright user-hostile behavior.

I use a Brother laser with non-oem cartridge. That is what Brother is known for.

They started cracking down on that a year or two ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mf...

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

#367

Post by ryao »

mcv wrote: post #263
denton-scratch wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned to hate HP inkjets. I decided never to buy HP again. When I eventually gave up on inkjets altogether, I bought a Samsung laser. It didn't cost much more than an inkjet, toner lasts for ages, doesn't dry up, and it works fine. But as soon as I googled the support pages, it turned out Samsung's printer division had been acquired by HP, the website was impossible to navigate, and there wasn't any documentation…

Same here. I would never ever buy anything from HP, but now my Samsung printer gets its support from HP. I feel betrayed. And I don't know if it's related, but my Samsung wireless network printer does not print from the network anymore.

My Samsung printer does not support networking. If I want to put it on the network, I need to put it behind a print host.

That being said, at least Samsung toner is cheap:

https://www.aaatoner.com/blreto4.html

I can get 1kg of toner for my printer for $35 before shipping. The cartridges only hold 90 grams.

There is even a third party chipless update to disable the chip:

https://inkchip.net/laser/

Unfortunately, the imaging drum is integrated with the cartridge, is not meant to last and HP is not making new ones. I do not know how many refills I will get out of it. However, the starter toner cartridge lasted 8 years and I replaced it with a regular cartridge at that time, so it will be a long time before I need to refill its replacement.

That said, I felt betrayed when Samsung sold its printing unit to HP too. :/

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

#368

Post by adrr »

screwturner68 wrote: post #339
gameman144 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think prison time is even what's needed here, I think these issues would resolve themselves if corporate fines were continually issued, rather than one-off lawsuits. For instance, a standing ruling that if your printer stops being able to print for no reason other than a contract breach, then the hardware is eligible for a refund. We don't need to put CEOs in prison for making consumer-hostile decisions, we j…

The issue is the fine is paid by the company and not the people who actually did the crime. As a result, the CEO, the board and the other players will all get big fat bonuses and the company will take a hit. When the company takes a hit one thing happens the people at the bottom of the chain get fired, not the decision makers, not the people who pushed this policy but some fucking engineer that just had his first kid…

It should be piercing fines that director and officers must pay and can’t be covered by the company in any form including D&O insurance.

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

#369

Post by ryao »

helsontaveras18 wrote: post #115
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we even sure that the customers legally own the printers? For instance, has anyone bothered to read the EULA that came with whatever bundled software someone installs now days to get the printer driver working? Even if there isn't surreptitious transfer of the hardware, they could certainly have a clause in there that authorizes them to do such things.

Yes, non-proud HP InkJet owner. You own the printer. However, you MUST be subscribed to their HP Whatever Program and pre-pay them the amount of pages you’d like to print on a monthly basis. You cannot print unless you are on the program. I did read these terms because it was insane, and I’m paraphrasing. It looks like they updated their program terms to force you to buy their ink. Honestly I thought that was already…

I have a HP PhotoSmart C3180 that predates that program. It did not work well with third party ink cartridges, but it could be that HP did something in the firmware to sabotage them. I have since stopped buying ink cartridges. I only print using laser printers now. The HP is nothing more than a high resolution scanner at this point.

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

#370

Post by torstenvl »

ryao wrote: post #353
torstenvl wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

HP also talks about dynamic security upfront in their documentation and marketing materials.

I'm skeptical that a deceptive euphemism somehow makes this less of a deceptive trade practice.
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