Comment by goldcd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by goldcd | Hacker News Reader

To give a counter argument - I've embraced HPs new model.

Couple of years ago, my old printer ended up in the bin. Was a great big hulking thing with a flatbed scanner that took up too much space. For the odd things I needed printing, I just did this at work. For scanning I have a lovely Fuji SnapScan (Feed in stack of pages, scans both sides, OCRs them and gives them to Google for storage).

With lock-down, I'm working at home and maybe once a week I've found I need to print something. Shipping labels, application forms to sign etc. I missed having a printer, but didn't want to commit to having to keep a printer fed with consumables for those few times I need one.

My employer offered to pay for bits I might need at home, so picked up an HP Tango printer for the Instant Ink. I'm not going to print more than 50 pages a month, so I'm out of pocket £2 a month for any printing I need. £24 a year. I'm happy with that (plus you get a few months free, only starts charging when carts it ships with are switched out, rolls over up to 150 pages and photos printed from app are free).

In summary - it suits my needs and I suspect those of many others. If I needed to print loads of course I'd just buy a laser, but for occasional 'I need a printer' and don't want to get annoyed every time I hear it pumping though ink to clear the heads..

The bigger issue here is that HP basically did a bait-and-switch promising free printing (x number of sheets a month) for life then saying you have to pay us 99 cents a month or you can't use your printer at all.

But you can use the printer - you just swap out the instant-ink carts for regular ones (or clones). Of course if I'm wrong, I'm open to being corrected - but my understanding is that it's not the printer that's the service, it's "the magic instant ink carts and the ink in them"

I love my ScanSnap. My workflow is incoming paper -> scanner -> DevonThink -> shredder. But note that £24 is ferociously expensive in terms of ink if you're not printing more than 600 pages a year. That's probably £8 worth of laser toner. You can also get a nice Brother B/W laser printer for under 200 USD these days.

I'm a bit evangelical about the Snapscan (I somehow managed to talk about it whilst discussing printers..)

I don't see the £24 as being ferociously expensive - as I'm really buying convenience. If you're looking at cost-per-page, I agree - If it were, then I'd be buying a laser-jet or a tanked ink-jet (and that would be many multiples of £24 extra).

Not just the cost I can now put out of mind, it's the annoying stuff (like "I bet HP just made 50 cents every time I clear the heads" or "FFS I just printed 20 cards with a sky on them, so I'm out of Cyan")

(Nitpick: It's ScanSnap. It took me a while to remember the word order, too.)

That's an excellent point about the convenience, and another reason I'm a huge fan of lasers. I have a tiny special-purpose photo printer for when I really want/need the pretty brightness that inkjets can have over laser, but for sheer convenience of "I know it's going to work this time" lasers reign supreme.

Same here. Another good quality of the HP instant ink printer I have is that the print head is built into the cartridge - so no more clogged up print heads, which always seemed to be the thing that failed in the previous inkjets I’ve had.

> Shipping labels

If you have any volume, thermal printers are worth the premium. The paper is the ink, they're lightning fast, and they never die.

I kind of wish handheld inkjets were more of a thing so we could have them at mailstops/drops, scan a QR code or something and then ink that onto the package directly.

Until HP once again changes their plans and makes them more expensive.

Will they do it? We don’t know, but they absolutely can. And this article literally talks about them doing an even uglier bait and switch making something that was promised to be free, paid for.

Of course they can change their plans - and probably will, if only to add inflationary costs, changes in local tax etc.

One 'offer' they're currently providing on the monthly month package is free printing of photos (up to 10x15cm and has to be done via the app). Now that's clearly to try to get you to use your wi-fi printer with your phone as some hybrid polaroid, "won't somebody please print more stuff and learn to love their printer"

I think there's an abuse clause (please don't use it as an online print service) and might vanish any time - but if you say wanted to chuck a photo or two into your christmas cards this year, it's a handy saving/convenience.

If you don't like their subscription service, then you can just swap out your subscription carts and use regular ones.

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