investors should be taken to a remote island and left to fend for themselves
A warning: if you are planning on buying an HP printer, never subscribe to the HP ink service. If you do, your printer will only be allowed to use certified HP cartridges, and it could lead to situations where you have ink in your printer but it will not print.
There is a lot of IP that we’ve built in the inks of the printers, in the printers themselves.
I call bullshit. I haven’t delved into specific law, but plenty of companies have been around since, say, the 1860s and are still producing ink today. If you can’t make ink people want to buy, that’s a skill issue.
“We have seen that you can embed viruses into cartridges, through the cartridge go to the printer, from the printer go to the network, so it can create many more problems for customers.”
As the cool kids these days say, “what the fuck is blud waffling about?” If a printer cartridge can contain a virus, I think that’s on you, not on the cartridge. A black cartridge and a color cartridge need only to conform to two unique shapes, and that should be all.
They could avoid the possibility of a virus by not having chips in them. Pretty simple fix.
Do yourself a favor and buy a Brother laser jet.
I updated my original comment. Definitely don’t want to give the impression anybody ever should.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The PC and print biz is currently facing a class-action lawsuit (from 2.42 in the video below) regarding allegations that the company deliberately prevented its hardware from accepting non-HP branded replacement cartridges via a firmware update.
When asked about the case in a CNBC interview, Lores said: "I think for us it is important for us to protect our IP.
And what we are doing is when we identify cartridges that are violating our IP, we stop the printers from work[ing]."
Lores said of customers who use a third-party cartridge: "In many cases, it can create all sorts of issues from the printer stopping working because the ink has not been designed to be used in our printer, to even creat[ing] security issues.
HP has long banged the drum [PDF] about the potential for malware to be introduced via print cartridges, and in 2022, its bug bounty program confirmed that third-party cartridges with reprogrammable chips could deliver malware into printers.
Sadly, Lores’s protestations were somewhat undermined by the admission that the company’s business model depends – at least in part – on customers selecting HP supplies for their devices.
The original article contains 438 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 57%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
“Every time a customer buys a printer, it’s an investment for us. We are investing in that customer, and if that customer doesn’t print enough or doesn’t use our supplies, it’s a bad investment.”
They literally can’t help themselves. They’ve gone from treating their employees like an investment vehicle, where if it doesn’t perform well enough, they stop investing in it, and they’re fully onto doing that to their customers as well. (They aren’t exactly actually investing in their employees either. They consider an employees low pay an “investment,” in the employee. Nevermind the employee can’t afford an apartment on their own on their pay.)
You know how little your boss thinks of you and how disposable they think you are?
Yeah, well, they think that about the customers now, too.
“You can easily be replaced with another customer who prints more,” is what they are saying to themselves.
Don’t buy HP printers. Buy Brothers instead. They’re a better product anyways.
I’m just now having to replace my brother printer (HL-2170W) I bought in 06, because the NIC is toast.
The printer still works great, but duplex printing sure would be nice.
Have you looked into printers that accept refillable containers of ink rather than cartridges? I haven’t looked too closely, but I see Epson makes some too, and the prices are pretty reasonable.
Every inkjet printer on this planet has a choice. Cheap ink, accessible printheads, expensive. You have to pick one.
Certain Hp? Expensive cartridges but new print heads with every cart. Epson ecotank? Cheap ink but non replaceable printheads. High-end printers? Insanely priced printheads and ink.
The only way out is laser.
“Pick two…”
I’m refilling stock HP cartridges for now, so I guess I’m technically getting the best of both worlds, but I wouldn’t wish the process of replacement on anybody.
I haven’t had any reason to print in color for like 20 years. I’m sure many consumers are the same.
If I do need to print color, I’ll pay $0.10 at UPS or the library or whatever to print it off.
For now anyway. Enshittification strikes too many products eventually.
Brother is just a little less greed than HP, nothing more
In case anyone cares, I’m sitting next to a Brother MFC-J1205W. It cost a couple hundred bucks, came with all full ink cartridges, and makes absolutely gorgeous color prints in addition to obviously being fine for printing-type printing. I’ve bought more ink for it once and it was $47 for every color of color cartridge with tons of ink inside them (I was out of yellow; I still have the cyan and magenta cartridges, and I’ve never had to buy more black). I’m extremely happy with it so far.
Before that, I had an Epson Workforce 545. It was pricey but it lasted, no joke, about 15 years, and worked well for the first ten and acceptably after that (not producing beautiful documents any more but still perfectly functional for printing). It only died because someone spilled sauce into it. It was a little more greedy on the ink than the Brother is.
Edit: Oh, and to my knowledge neither of these printers ever tried to tell me that I needed to install their special
rootkitsoftware in order to get the full experience of their printer. I just plug them in and they print. I feel like that’s a selling point in our blighted modern age.That’s not how investments work. If I put my money into purchasing a printer, I invested in that purchase. Not the other way around. Ffs
HP is a bad investment
How small and shriveled this man’s soul must be. He should take a lesson from Ferdinand the Bull, and enjoy smelling the flowers for a while.
In grad school I picked up a free used HP LaserJet. It had Ethernet, and could use generic/off brand cartridges. Yeah it was big and noisy but it was an awesome workhorse and it Just Worked (with out-of-the-box CUPS/Linux support too, IIRC).
How the mighty have fallen.
Why do these dumb ass CEO’s keep admitting this type of stuff in interviews? Don’t tell us your evil plans. No one is going to hear this and be more eager to buy your products. They’re so proud of coming up with ways to screw customers that they just can’t help themselves. They have to let everyone know. I don’t get it.
Because that interview is for investors. He’s looking out for the shares price, not his customers. We can always buy other products, like Canon or Epson. It’s too bad because HP printers are the best, but not enough to let us be robbed like other brands.
HP printers are the best
No. Not by any metric.
Fuck HP, that simple. it’s exhibit “a” for the proof of enshittification
Later in the interview, he added: “Every time a customer buys a printer, it’s an investment for us. We are investing in that customer, and if that customer doesn’t print enough or doesn’t use our supplies, it’s a bad investment.”
This makes me want to buy 10 million printers and then just sent them on fire…
“We have seen that you can embed viruses into cartridges, through the cartridge go to the printer, from the printer go to the network, so it can create many more problems for customers.”
If the cartidges didn’t have drm chips you wouldn’t have anything to load with malware to begin with.
We have seen that you can embed viruses into cartridges, through the cartridge go to the printer, from the printer go to the network
Hey dipshits, this is possible because you built firmware into your printer cartridges to prevent 3rd party cartridges in the first place
