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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

#451

Post by kerkeslager »

pertymcpert wrote: post #416
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…

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.

If you have any problems with my understanding of business, feel free to say what they are, but so far you've just claimed that I'm wrong without any reason, and objected to my choice of words.

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

#452

Post by kerkeslager »

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.

> Because "make decisions that harm people" is vague, and criminal codes should be explicit and clear?

Nobody was proposing that "make decisions that harm people" should be the wording of the criminal code. Obviously nobody's drafting legal language to be passed as law on Hacker News.

We're discussing, at a high level, the concept of holding people responsible for their actions. If a concrete example would help you, consider the Ford Pinto case, where people committed murder (a law that's already on the books, in clear language) and didn't go to jail for it because it was behind the veil of a corporation.

> 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?

Oh no, what will we do without sociopaths in charge of the economy? Who will want money if they can't harm other people to get it?

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like if people decide not to go into business because their business doesn't work without harming people, that's a good thing?

If you're worried about people being treated unfairly, why are you completely ignoring everything that's being said about businesses harming workers and customers? Why are you only worried that the rich and powerful might be treated unfairly, despite a complete lack of historical precedent for that happening?

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

#453

Post by dbsmith83 »

kerkeslager wrote: post #452
dbsmith83 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Because "make decisions that harm people" is vague, and criminal codes should be explicit and clear? Nobody was proposing that "make decisions that harm people" should be the wording of the criminal code. Obviously nobody's drafting legal language to be passed as law on Hacker News. We're discussing, at a high level, the concept of holding people responsible for their actions. If a concrete example would help you,…

Sure, of a law is on the books, then hold people responsible. But we are talking about 3rd party printer ink here. Why is criminality and jail even being mentioned at all?

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

#454

Post by unionpivo »

mcny wrote: post #173
educaysean wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The CEO and board supervising the crimes might be long gone and no longer a part of the corporation by the time the law catches up with them and the owners / shareholders are left holding the bag. Did these people continue to maintain the processes and rules enacted by their predecessors? If so they aren't "left holding the bag", they are the remaining beneficiaries of the system. If you are one of the few who have…

> If you are one of the few who have the power to stop something but you don't because you benefit from the status quo, you aren't a victim. You are the perpetrator. I know you said few and I am moving goal posts here a little but it isn’t always the “big guys” who suffer either. Will you volunteer to tell the retiring teacher or firefighter that they will have to starve because you’d rather punish the ultimate perpe…

> Will you volunteer to tell the retiring teacher or firefighter that they will have to starve because you’d rather punish the ultimate perpetrators rather than hold the actually guilty (the then CEO and the board) accountable to the law?

I would. And firefighters and teachers are used to getting fucked by everybody anyway. (mom is a teacher, and have several friends who are firefighters).

But in reality, big union funds, invest only a little bit in any one company, so no, some big company loosing some of it market cap, would make little difference to each individual teacher and firefighter.

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

#455

Post by unionpivo »

nickpp wrote: post #423
jeltz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While GDPR is far from perfect those fines made a huge difference. Hefty fines do scare companies.

The most visible difference inside the EU is a significant degradation of the user web browsing experience.

Maybe visible, but as someone who works in EU, behind the screen there is a lot more emphasis on either not collecting data, or being more strict with what you collect and how you collect it.

PII data identifying, documenting it, and periodic review's of that is becoming standard procedure.

I remember when GDPR was announced, where for most projects, there was not anyone who could tell you for any given project, what all data is being collected and stored where.

So GDPR did have positive* effect at least with the part of the market I am familiar with.

* As in positive for people privacy

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

#456

Post by rcarmo »

This is one of the reasons I’ve been meaning to switch to a Brother printer for a while - just waiting for my current HP all-in-one to die (I need a scanner, and until a few years ago also needed a fax).

Fortunately we don’t print that much stuff anymore, even with kids’ assignments.

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

#457

Post by kerkeslager »

dbsmith83 wrote: post #453
kerkeslager wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because "make decisions that harm people" is vague, and criminal codes should be explicit and clear? Nobody was proposing that "make decisions that harm people" should be the wording of the criminal code. Obviously nobody's drafting legal language to be passed as law on Hacker News. We're discussing, at a high level, the concept of holding people responsible for their actions. If a concrete example would help you,…

Sure, of a law is on the books, then hold people responsible. But we are talking about 3rd party printer ink here. Why is criminality and jail even being mentioned at all?

"Destruction of property" is a law on the books in some form in pretty much every jurisdiction[1].

When you sell a printer to someone, it's no longer your property, it's their property, and if you destroy it, that's destruction of property.

Arguably there's also some cyber crimes involved here as well.

If I hacked into your printer and bricked it, I'd go to jail, no question. Why is HP above the law in your mind, when they did it on a much larger scale?

[1] https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/criminal-dama...

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

#458

Post by Ryccardo »

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.

At least with my HL-1112 (bottom-barrel model in 2015) and MFC-L2700DW (entry level all-in-one with decent, albeit aftermarket, multiplatform support) it's trivial to manually reset the levels once you know the button sequence - don't even need a retail cartridge with the mechanical "unused toner" spinner!

That said... yeah, who knows what they're up to, 5 years later?

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

#459

Post by throwaway81523 »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #258
throwaway81523 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1) inkjet photo printing is actually pretty good; 2) sometimes you want color printing for basic graphics or colored text, rather than photo realism.

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

#460

Post by Ryccardo »

synergy20 wrote: post #113

It's like Toyota will disable my car if I did not go to its dealers to do oil changes or regular maintenance. Make your ink cartridge super high quality with reasonable price, I will buy it. Selling a printer at dirty cheap price and expect to recoup the discount via over priced ink cartridges? your sales and marketing department are doing it wrong, and it's not my problem at all. Besides, who needs printers these da…

You might be interested to know that Volkswagen's newest CNG cars do exactly that - there's a multi-year countdown configured at the factory, and when it runs down you can't use that fuel anymore, just the gasoline fallback!

That's particularly "fun" here in Italy, where (unlike in the rest of Europe), metal cylinders currently need to be removed from the car and sent to one of two national inspection centers for high pressure testing - which requires them to be empty, of course!

And unlike the oil change reminder, you can't reset it with just a button press, you need a computer interface (for which there's a fair amount of competition, but the cheapest for personal use seems to start at 60 € before shipping and is a "cloud" service)

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