It’s uncanny how any post about problems with HP always has the same solution in the comments. Brother.
In related news, learning what Audi is doing with their new model and subscriptions makes me think the world has gone mad.
It’s a good brand. I have their laser printer and it’s great. No annoying registration, 3rd party toner cartridges are allowed. Super fast compared to inkjet. Overall a great experience compared to my HP printer which won’t let me scan unless I register on the HP app.
Everybody donate to Pine64 so they can get that open source printer off the ground someday.
Wait, what?
Pine64, the company that has made such excellent projects as the PinePhone, PineBook, and PineTime(open source hardware and software smartphone, laptop and smart watch), has stated that one of their dream projects would be an open source, hackable printer. There’s obviously a ton of logistics though and it will likely never materialize unless they really start making big bucks.
First time I see it and couldn’t find any sources. What kind of printer? Thermal, matrix, laser/led, inkjet?
They only mentioned it in passing once (afaik) in a blog post. These aren’t actual plans so much as a pipe dream I think
Get a brother printer
Fuck HP. Simple as that.
As other comments have said. Never buy anything from HP.
Get a Brother printer.
My mom bought a cheap HP printer/scanner several years ago and subscribed to their “instant ink” subscription which was actually surprisingly cheap (like $3/mo) but once the printer stopped reliably connecting to the internet and nobody could print wirelessly anymore with it, she canceled the subscription and HP DISABLED ALL OF THE INK CARTRIDGES. The cartridges themselves have wifi connections so HP can automatically send you new ink when they get low. What a scam.
No, they have serial numbers that are read by the printer when you try to use them. Air Gap the printer.
The fuck?
I’m guessing they signed up for HP Instant Ink, a monthly subscription service that monitors the ink levels in the printer and automatically mails you refills.
If you buy an HP printer, they HEAVILY promote this and offer discounts/free trials. I declined, because fuck that, but I could see someone agreeing and forgetting about it.
That’s a real thing. Buy Brother, brother.
Has Epson also gone downhill? The first one I bought lasted 11 years, so about 3 years ago I replaced it with another Epson.
Epson with the eco tank. It’s like 12 bucks for several years of ink and the thing just works.
What ink are you getting for $12?? Even allowing for quite a bit of poetic licence, this seems ridiculously cheap.
What ink are you getting for $12
That investment in a squid and giant aquarium is paying for itself, I tells ya! 😛
If you buy HP, you deserve everything you get.
No. Making a mistake doesn’t mean you deserve unfair treatment.
Enshittification is driven by consumers who don’t bother to get informed. I think everyone has a responsibility to make choices that don’t actively make society worse.
No, YOU’RE Steven by consumers who stunt burner! 😛
Edit in case anyone’s wondering what I’m babbling about: this was the comment I was responding to before what I assume was a series of autocorrect errors were fixed:
By that same logic, everyone has a responsibility to educate uninformed people about enshitification. Everyone is uninformed until they aren’t, and you can help.
Of course. Every night, I go door to door asking people if they have some time to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Linus Torvalds.
May Arch be with you…
For those who don’t know, Wendigoon is a creepy lore youtuber.
He’s also sometimes been acredited with creating the aesthetic of the boogaloo boys, not sure how true that is.
As far as I’ve heard, his videos are fairly consistent with documentation of the events he covers, such as the unibomber, the MLK assassination, etc.
It’s very funny to think he wasn’t radicalized before the printer situation.
Yeah, he has a… questionable history, what with the “boogaloo boys” memes, but he stopped engaging with that pretty quickly around the time it became associated with Actual Nazis instead of semi-ironic government-hating libertarians.
The fact that HP didn’t even say anything makes it look less like profiteering and more like spite. Idiots. I’m actually in the market for a printer and from what I can tell, in order to get something that won’t stiff me in some way I have to get one which is really old. And not made by HP.
You just want a Brother laser jet black and white printer
It’s no bullshit and will work forever
Epson EcoTank. They’re expensive printers, but the ink is so cheap they make up for it. I absolutely love mine and recommend it to anyone looking for a printer.
Actually eco tank printers are also designed to fail as they have ink pads that can only be replaced by the manufacturer I recommend you watch this video explaining the problem with tank printers like the eco tank.
That’s an ink absorber, and all inkjet printers have them. It’s not “designed to fail”, it’s a physical limitation of the universe. You can’t just keep dumping ink into a sponge forever. Eventually it will become saturated and you can either clean it or replace it.
I’ve had my printer for about four years and haven’t needed to replace one yet. They only cost about $10 when you do need to replace it. If they cost several hundred dollars, I would see your point, but the savings in ink more than makes up for having to replace a sponge every decade or so.
Edit: I missed that you said only the manufacturer can replace it. That’s not true. It’s user replaceable with a Phillips head screwdriver.
Edit 2: Added links.
What I meant by “designed to fail” is that most of these ecotank printers need the counter to be reset by epson themselves. You can easily replace the pads. But you can’t easily reset the counter. It is possible but it involves trusting sketch sites and paying for a license to use the reset software. Older cartridges based epson printers had waste tanks with chips so that it could know when it was replaced. Newer eco tank printers don’t have the chip that let’s it know when the waste tank is replaced.
That’s not designed to fail, that’s designed to be serviced. Do you call cars “designed to fail” because they need new oil filters and the check engine light comes on when you need an oil change?
Yeah but it’s the same as if the oil filter in your car was super glued in and the dealership was the only ones that had the chemical to dissolve the glue.
You just said there are other ways to do it besides Epson. There are multiple sites that provide utilities to reset the counter.
The sponges are cheap. Way cheaper than using a cartridge printer. You can even just clean out the sponge and put it back in. You don’t have to buy a new one.
Even going through Epson’s first party maintenance program is way cheaper than using a cartridge printer. Like, orders of magnitude cheaper.
It is designed to fail. But for other reasons and by different mechanisms.
It’s not designed to fail. It’s designed to be user serviceable. You can buy a replacement and replace it yourself. It literally only requires a Phillips head screwdriver to take out the one screw on the back panel. If that is designed to fail, then a car needing an oil change is “designed to fail”.
It literally only requires a Phillips head screwdriver to take out the one screw on the back panel.
Literally rocket science. I’m gonna have to pay a monthly subscription so a service tech can come out and do it for me.
It is made out of materials that have a set lifetime or propensity for easily breaking, like glass screens that explode into a supernova if you look at them wrong.
What materials could be used here that wouldn’t have that problem?
A fair market?
If you’re gonna spend money on a decent printer, go with a laser printer unless you specifically need ink printing.
I have an HP I got like a decade ago, and only had to change the OEM toner carts in the last 6mo or so. The thing has survived 3 moves too, so it’s held up like a champ. It probably helps that it’s an older HP, so it was before they went to shit.
Hi, this is Hewlett Packard here. We read your post and are happy you love our products! Wouldn’t it make sense for you to upgrade to one of our newer models? I’m sure you’re tired of lugging your heavy, old printer these days.
Our new ones are much lighter! Lighter in weight due to beautiful design! Lighter even on your wallet (at first, and for now)!
Won’t you consider upgrading and locking in - I mean - “purchasing” a new printer, pretty please? uwu :3
Here’s a friendly Kirby to convince you to upgrade! See, we’re cool and we know how to use product placement! Upgrade now or else!! We can’t wait for YOUR SOUL TO BE OURS.
Your Friend, HP
(We rebranded. Now the “P” stands for Predatory, but like the cute kind 😘. It’s okay to give us your money, trust us.)
Wait a second, people still use printers in 2024!
That is frustrating for sure, but they prob should have read their agreement when they purchased whatever subscription they signed up for. It’s like complaining that T-Mobile has locked their subscription-discounted phone despite them not paying the bill.
It isn’t like that at all. T-Mobile would’ve given you a better deal for taking a contract such as that, HP just decided they didn’t want you to even THINK about purchasing ink or something from anyone else but them. It’d be more like if T-Mobile sold you a phone that you paid full price for, and then decided they’d remotely lock your phone and wipe it if you tried to buy a charging cable from anywhere but their store.
This is straight malicious anti-consumer bullshit, and it is basically rapist behavior. It’s disgusting.
If you buy a printer that has it already included, then you’re either getting a discounted printer or “discounted” ink for a subscription period. They make it clear that it is a subscription service when you do so. They all sell printers that are not subscription-based. I’m guessing you can still sign up for their subscription-based service, and you should read the fine print about being able to cancel or what happens if you don’t pay.
I absolutely hate HP by the way. They do things like include spyware in their “drivers” that are pushed through Windows Update. However, in this case, a simple Twitter screenshot doesn’t accurately capture the full story. If you want to provide some more context, then by all means feel free to do so.
