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Hmm, so should we expect a future where washing machines and other appliances work like this but with actual DRM? That's a dark thought.

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Well, printer cartridges already have encrypted chips so you can't change the fill status, so has the future been here for a while?

Technically even this single byte is "DRM", it's just a really simple DRM.

Or, technically, it's not "digital rights", since the "R" stood for copyright as applied to works of art (music/movies/video games).

Maybe they should just make each cartridge have an NFT, snort.

I don't think that's a protective measure, to me it just looks like a convenient way of tracking the liquid level in the cartridge. I don't think that a hack like this is harming the company or cuts into their revenue - most people wouldn't bother resetting these thing to refill them manually - the labor investment probably isn't worth it. Their target audience would pay for convenience, they already do by opting for cartridges instead of manual addition.

Wait you're saying most people wouldn't just squeeze a bottle of ink into a cartridge? Maybe, hmm.

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