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What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

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Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#41

Post by Declanomous »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #18
onion2k wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great if you print a couple of hundred pages a year, but if you print a couple of hundred pages a day a cheap color laser printer will be very expensive to run and it'll break down often enough to be a significant problem. No doubt your printer serves you well, but that doesn't mean it's a good solution for everyone.

If you're printing a couple of hundred pages a day, I'd assume its for work and that's part of the cost of doing business. In my personal life I print out like a dozen pages a year? Mostly boarding passes.

The nice thing about inkjets is that they are smaller. I have a Brother HL 5250dn (off the top of my head). I bought it for $75 eight years ago, and I've printed about 30,000 pages through it. Most of those pages were while I was in college and was doing research. Now I print about 100 pages a year, and I mildly resent the printer for all the space it takes up.

On the flip side, my company has a set of 3 hp printers that we use twice a year for printing stuff at the last minute for our two conferences, which are less than a month apart. We have to buy new print cartridges every year, cause the ink dries in the container. I think our cost per page is probably close to a dollar. This year we had to throw out a number of unused cartridges because they dried out in the package, despite being less than 18 months old.

Moral of the story is that inkjets suck no matter what, and the biggest downside of laser printers is their size.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#42

Post by Kadin »

SyneRyder wrote: post #5

I generally like the EFF, and I'm a member (albeit at a low paying level)... but if you're really unhappy about this, isn't it better just to stop buying HP printer products? Rather than being so activist & "omg outrage!", why doesn't the EFF publish a list of printers that the EFF currently does recommend? Almost like the Wirecutter does with their product testing reviews. (It sounds like Epson might be one alternat…

Boycotts are a pretty weak weapon compared to the ability to tarnish a company's reputation. I've yet to see a boycott really have any effect in the tech marketplace, but negative publicity often elicits some sort of response when it starts to get mainstream media coverage.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#43

Post by tehmaco »

adrusi wrote: post #29
praptak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because consumer choice is a very weak weapon against your freedoms being taken away. Political action is what corporations fear, in particular the threat of organized support behind ideas to regulate them more heavily. Edit: RMS quote: "All in all, I think it is a mistake to defend people’s rights with one hand tied behind our backs, using nothing except the individual option to say no to a deal. We should use democ…

Why would they fear regulation? Their competitors become subject to the same restrictions.

They'll still need to spend resources (and so will earn reduced profit) updating processes/code/etc to comply with the regs, plus ongoing costs to ensure compliance.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#44

Post by jkot »

3chelon wrote: post #31

I once got a full refund on a laptop outside of its warranty period because a software update (Windows 8.1) effectively bricked the machine. I demanded it under the UK Sale of Goods Act, which states that a product must be fit for purpose, which it clearly no longer was once the automatic update had happened. I do wonder if this can be more broadly applied to consumer products that effectively change their behaviour…

It would be interesting to return notebook after 1 year, because you disagree with Windows EULA.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#45

Post by fmihaila »

tehmaco wrote: post #43
adrusi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they fear regulation? Their competitors become subject to the same restrictions.

They'll still need to spend resources (and so will earn reduced profit) updating processes/code/etc to comply with the regs, plus ongoing costs to ensure compliance.

They actually _spent_ resources to ensure that non-hp cartridges are treated differently. If they had been prevented by law to do it (and maybe they are), they would have saved money!

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#47

Post by fmihaila »

Declanomous wrote: post #37
adrusi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they fear regulation? Their competitors become subject to the same restrictions.

Their competitors may be subject to the same regulations, but new regulations force companies to develop products that comply with the new regulations. R&D is a huge expense, and you can't guarantee the product you develop is going to be better than your competitors. Furthermore, their competitors might already have a product which meets the new regulations, or one which can be easily modified to meet them. This can…

Regulation demanding not to screw your customers doesn't seem like such a big burden to me.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#48

Post by cptskippy »

onion2k wrote: post #7
in_the_sticks wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Color laser printers are getting fairly cheap (mine's a basic printer, granted, but it was quite a bit cheaper than the cheapest EcoTank models). You don't have to worry about your ink drying out or print heads getting clogged.

That's great if you print a couple of hundred pages a year, but if you print a couple of hundred pages a day a cheap color laser printer will be very expensive to run and it'll break down often enough to be a significant problem. No doubt your printer serves you well, but that doesn't mean it's a good solution for everyone.

So what's your proposed solution? Surely you're not suggesting an inkjet.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#49

Post by ultramancool »

SyneRyder wrote: post #5

I generally like the EFF, and I'm a member (albeit at a low paying level)... but if you're really unhappy about this, isn't it better just to stop buying HP printer products? Rather than being so activist & "omg outrage!", why doesn't the EFF publish a list of printers that the EFF currently does recommend? Almost like the Wirecutter does with their product testing reviews. (It sounds like Epson might be one alternat…

I'd love this kind of report with various things. I'm thinking phones would be extremely helpful too, how easy is it to unlock the bootloader on this phone? How hard is it to repair it? What proprietary blobs does it rely upon?

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#50

Post by vc4devil »

3chelon wrote: post #31

I once got a full refund on a laptop outside of its warranty period because a software update (Windows 8.1) effectively bricked the machine. I demanded it under the UK Sale of Goods Act, which states that a product must be fit for purpose, which it clearly no longer was once the automatic update had happened. I do wonder if this can be more broadly applied to consumer products that effectively change their behaviour…

The issue is why do people in UK/USA put up with this Orwellian customer control business model?

In Asia if a company were to do these things the business would be burnt to the ground, and/or family selling the inferior by design products.

...

This is silly, the printer biz has always been 'give away the camera, and take the first born when they need film'

You go abroad ASIA and every printer ink or cartridge, as a bladder attached outside where you have an infinite pool of ink/powder for printing, you buy the printer, and walk out the store with the bladder attached.

Now only in the USA do they sell the SIM card for the phone by ID, or make it a felony to put free ink or powder in a printer. HP? Canon and all have been doing this for years, but why is it that in USA you still walk out of the store with a boxed printer that has cartridge with a 1/2 life of 10 prints and then the ink/powder costs the same as the original printer?

The USA like the Epipen fiasco is FULL retard on screwing people, HP is just on the band-wagon.

...

From poor medical care, to Epipen, to all the silly things that USA/UK people put with, its amazing the CORP Fascist government has such willing lemmings to go along with this BS.

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