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Comment by jen729w | Hacker News Reader

This isn’t new, though. My first job was for Xerox in 1996 and they sold variations on photocopiers that were purely software. (Or even a physical DIP switch.)

The basic model XX40 gives you 40 pages a minute. Want the XX80? An engineer comes out and flips the DIP. Exact same hardware.

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You used to be able to buy budget version of Casio scientific calculator and use pencil to draw a wire on PCB to turn it into fx-991EX. The only thing missing button labels.

I remember this!! Similar with the 9850G, could upgrade it to the GII with a slightly modified hardware

I recall consumer CPUs and some pencil mark bridging trick to upgrade them around that time too.

Those were the Pentium II, 233-333Mhz were all identical and could be pencil unlocked

IIRC some AMD too.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AMD_Athlon_Pencil_Tr...

This probably sold a lot of extra CPUs.

Not the same time frame, but it reminded me of the hack to make consumer GeForce Nvidia cards appear to be their overpriced, professional, Quadro counterparts:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/hacking-nvid...

It's at least plausible that running them faster means servicing is more expensive (assuming these were supplied under service contracts / leases which seems to be the usual case for office copiers).

I am 100% okay with hardware that has been leased having artificial limitations. I don't own a leased device. I am paying for my usage of it. Running something at half capacity for service reliability reasons is a valid strategy.

I'm 100% okay with artificial limitations on hardware I buy, too, so long as they're upfront about capabilities - Running something at half capacity for service reliability reasons is still a valid strategy when dealing with warranties. I have no problem buying an AMD Ryzen 7900 which is literally the same silicon on the same fab as the 7950, but binned differently. They are clear about what they're providing, what the specs are, and it's possible that it could perform better, but I know what they're guaranteeing. Sometimes I don't like it - If yields are good, they could bin many more cards at the higher tier and drop the price, but they're under no obligation to provide me a better product out of charity; They should have competition that forces their hand.

It's where it's unclear or deceptive that it's a problem, and HP's scheme is a shakedown. We should invest in competitors.

I'd see them as a monopoly business. The cost to start a competitor is ridiculously high. The hardware sellers instead need to be broken up for competitiveness

And you don’t care if you can’t fix it either?

John Deere sells you a tractor and you honestly don’t care that you can’t have it repaired by a local tractor shop?

I mean it’s great if you happen to live next to a dealer and are rich, but not everyone is so privileged.

That'd be the "We should invest in competitors" part.

Monopolies are a problem. Businesses exploiting consumers are a problem. Both are worth solving.

Provided this is clear up front, and I have alternatives if it doesn’t suit my needs; yes.

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