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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

#411

Post by peoplefromibiza »

dbsmith83 wrote: post #395
kerkeslager wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What normal people are concerned about: "Corporations are destroying people's lives for the profit of a few." What Hacker News is concerned about: "Someone was slightly snarky in an internet post." I didn't accuse anyone of being rude. I don't care if you're rude to me. This whole "rudeness" thing is just a transparent way of distracting from the question: Why can't we hold executives personally, financially or crimi…

Because "make decisions that harm people" is vague, and criminal codes should be explicit and clear? Who the fuck would want to do business if someone can arbitrarily claim they broke some vague law that most surely would not get applied fairly and equally? It's a terrible idea.

that's simply how civile law, the most popular legal system in the World, works: the trial establishes if the company harmed people and decides if the decision makers are to be punished or not.

Nothing hard about it.

OTOH the way corporate law is applied today is neither fair or applied equally and it mostly harms people and benefit corporations, I don't see a problem if we reverse the outcome

less corporations that operate on higher ethical standards sounds like a win-win to me

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

#412

Post by josefx »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #255
makeitdouble wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Browsers are free, so the choice is to get "the best". With printers the cheapest is often "good enough" and inkjet printers have an intentionally low up front cost. Convincing people that a laser printer is the cheaper choice even if they think that they "barely print anything" is an uphill battle.

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

#413

Post by [deleted] »

detrites wrote: post #79
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…

While I generally agree, there's something more immediate. All of us having this view can refuse to ever buy or even use HP products, and explain to anyone and everyone at every opportunity exactly why this is. Boycotts can be immensely powerful, and strike fear into the hearts of those who would exploit us. Personally, I will never buy an HP product again. Absolute, permanent blacklist. It's simply way too disgustin…

[deleted]

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

#414

Post by onion2k »

jorvi wrote: post #146
crazygringo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporate fines just end up being passed on to workers No they don't, they get passed on to shareholders. The market cap of the company decreases by the amount of the fine (plus any predicted future effect of the lost money) and the stock price goes down to reflect that. If the company could get away with paying workers less or decreasing its workforce in order to boost profitability, it already would have. It's no…

Pretty much. Yesterday I wanted to grab some Fanta for in the park. A 0.33L can would’ve been too little, but a 1L bottle too much, and a 1.5L bottle far too much. 0.50L was the perfect size. The pricing? 0.33L - €0.66 (€2.00 per L) 0.50L - €1.48 (€2.96 per L) 1.00L - €1.93 (€1.93 per L) 1.50L - €2.09 (€1.39 per L) Initially this made me angry, as it is very clear they figured out that the 0.5L bottle is the most con…

Pretty much everyone: Businesses should operate in a free market. Let the market decide! Things shouldn't be regulated by the government if they don't absolutely need to be.

Also pretty much everyone: Wait, the decisions businesses make that affect me absolutely suck!

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

#415

Post by onion2k »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #384
screwturner68 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The CEO will pay attention to problems that cost them money. A lot of corporate bad behavior would be fairly easy to stop by making it a cost rather than a benefit. Things like an improper denial, you owe 2x the amount. Late payment, you owe say +20% plus a high interest rate on the delay. Fairly routine things you have a clock that's tolled while the other party is actually responding to requests for information, no…

The CEO will pay attention to problems that cost them money.

True, but only when the cost is greater than the profit from doing whatever it is you don't want the business to do. From example, if paying a bill late comes with a 20% premium, but not paying it increases profit by 21%, then it's better to pay late.

In the system of modern business it's really hard to see why things happen, so simple rules very rarely work. People are hugely creative when it comes to dreaming up ways around them.

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

#416

Post by pertymcpert »

kerkeslager wrote: post #294
frankfrankfrank wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to double check and you were not responding to me, but yes, it was in fact you who was passive aggressive rude and underhanded with your snide “surely I don’t have to”, conceited, pretentious, snarky response. If you’re going to accuse others of being rude, you should start. This is not reddit. Are you lost? Pretentious pomp should best be left at the door anywhere outside of the reddit quarantine of awful huma…

What normal people are concerned about: "Corporations are destroying people's lives for the profit of a few." What Hacker News is concerned about: "Someone was slightly snarky in an internet post." I didn't accuse anyone of being rude. I don't care if you're rude to me. This whole "rudeness" thing is just a transparent way of distracting from the question: Why can't we hold executives personally, financially or crimi…

The person answered your question implicitly, you just didn't understand it.

Not only that, you're completely wrong in the earlier exchange about laying off workers. I think you need to understand business better to see that it doesn't work out the way you think it does. Shouting "fuck" on HN with a wrong take doesn't make you right.

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

#417

Post by RealityVoid »

ryao wrote: post #355
RealityVoid wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Louis Rossman had a video about exactly this kind of attitude, and he persuaded me that it's not a good one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN44n_F_CPo Please do watch it. His point is that this kind of horrible kind of practices corrupt and spread through industries so they need to be dealt with ASAP if you want to prevent it becoming standard. Besides, you can't be savvy about all fields. Sure, you know about prin…

Louis Rossman has a business interest to say that. Interestingly, if you try asking him to fix a Dell laptop that was a gift from a deceased relative, he will refuse, no matter how much you are willing to pay. I know this from experience.

Maybe. But that does not invalidate what he's saying here. Sure, scrutinize it, counter it. But I find what he said to make sense.

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

#418

Post by AngryData »

injidup wrote: post #262
htss2013 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you assume the market efficiently adjusts for things like fines? Have you seen the stock market lately? There is at best a loose correlation between business reality and stock prices. Why would there be a 1 to 1 relationship between the price of stocks and reality, when most investing is blind passive investing that ignores reality by design?

If you are sure stocks are over or under priced then go mortgage your house and trade your financial security against the market and win.

It doesn't really matter that much if he thinks or knows a stock is under or over valued if he also expects that bad valuation to be maintained for any significant length of time.

Stock prices are not rational and there is no consistent way to calculate the value of a company. An expensive media campaign that accomplishes nothing related to their business offerings and may even lose the company significant amounts of money can end up raising a stock price. And you also don't have unlimited time to try and wait out stocks which also have so many other random factors being thrown in over the years.

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

#419

Post by monksy »

codedokode wrote: post #248
Xeoncross wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishment should fit the crime. We don't over-punish people to force them to think differently, that has always led to dark periods in history. There are plenty of low-friction ways consumers could be reimbursed plus the cost of lost time or energy spent on a now 'broken' printer if we wanted to solve this in a fair way.

But in America people are overpunished. I often read titles like "he faces up to 100 years in a prison" when in reality it is just a poor Russian guy who didn't murder or hurt anyone, just collected credit card numbers and sold it to other guys. 100 years just for stealing a bit of money? That's draconian laws.

> when in reality it is just a poor Russian guy who didn't murder or hurt anyone, just collected credit card numbers and sold it to other guys. 100 years just for stealing a bit of money? That's draconian laws.

So financial crimes aren't serious to you?

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

#420

Post by TobTobXX »

bastard_op wrote: post #7

As the article states, HP has even been sued for this, yet continues to do it as it's a core part of their profits to keep people buying THEIR ink. Profit alone for the printer itself isn't worth it, they'd otherwise they'd not even bother making printers anymore, but that reoccurring revenue from ink is some sweet sweet cash. It's like google/fakebook/twits whining about people blocking ads or using encryption they…

Worlds smallest violin?
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