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Comment by Wowfunhappy | Hacker News Reader

> They can say the sub is for "pages printed", but that's complete nonsense and everyone knows it.

I actually don't think that's nonsense, because HP is charging per page, not per ink cartridge. You don't get a new ink cartridge every month, you get the ability to print more pages, and only new cartridges as required to print those pages. Put another way, OP's subscription only paid for a fraction of their ink cartridge, not the whole cartridge.

HP could make OP mail back their half-empty cartridge, but that likely would raise the overall cost of the service due to shipping logistics.

I agree the whole concept of this service feels scummy and I would never recommend it to anyone, I just don't find this particular aspect so unfair.

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I actually offered to buy my mother a printer with what I considered a more sensible ink replacement situation but she asked for, received and had been very happy with, a printer with the HP Instant Ink subscription. I was astonished, but she's not an idiot, and she doesn't have any reason to lie to me.

She's retired but she does a lot of arts and crafts stuff and seems to print a fair amount most months, and she hates having to drive somewhere to buy ink when you run out, so I guess this is more convenient.

I see what you are saying, but susbscription according to OP was for "HP Instant Ink". I also assume the cost of the subscription was pretty much to cover the cost of the Ink. In my eyes, OP has already paid for the ink. If they want to make it fair, then they could define a charge per page and then bill you for actual pages printed at the end of each month. The fact that ink must be bundled in cartridges that print many pages is HPs problem, not consumers, and they can't work around that with a non-sensical subscription model.

> If they want to make it fair, then they could define a charge per page and then bill you for actual pages printed at the end of each month.

But that's literally how it works! A certain number of pages are included in the monthly cost, and you're billed for additional pages over the limit.

The problem is that OP cancelled their subscription shortly after receiving a new cartridge. So now the options are:

• Make OP return the cartridge.

• Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!)

• Prevent OP from using the cartridge.

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> The fact that ink must be bundled in cartridges that print many pages is HPs problem, not consumers, and they can't work around that with a non-sensical subscription model.

But at the same time: consumers are choosing to buy this subscription. HP provides an option to buy cartridges outright, without limits, and consumers are choosing the subscription instead.

I don't know why consumers are doing that. I would never do it, and I would strongly advise others against it. But many people appear to appreciate the service.

Now, maybe those people are being tricked into the subscription via dark patterns, which would be a problem, but a different one.

>The problem is that

IMO, the Problem is that HP markets this as an ink subscription, when it is really a printed page subscription. It's hard to blame someone for thinking that an "ink subscription" would prevent them from fully utilizing ink paid for during the subscription.

This seems like HP is trying to capitalize on all kinds of other product subscription models popular today (eg: Aamazon Subscribe and Save, pet food deliveries, water delivery, etc.), but purposefully making the marketing as misleading as possible.

Don't call it "instant ink", call it a Print Subscription and you'd probably eliminate most of the problems (and sales...).

It's called "HP Instant Ink" because you don't have to keep track of ink cartridge levels, HP takes care of that for you and bills per page instead.

I honestly thought all the marketing materials I've seen were quite clear about how the service was billed. I don't think changing the name would lead to more or less confusion or sales.

It would have reduced confusion for me, anyway. I thought is was an ink subscription service, because that's how they market it.

But did you actually go through the buying process? I tried it and you have to select a plan based on number of pages.

No, I'm talking about the marketing. But is the fact that it's not an ink subscription service made really clear? Because it's absolutely not in their marketing materials. They do everything possible to make it sound like an ink subscription service.

I could easily see myself looking at selecting a plan based on number of pages and thinking that they're just using that to measure the amount of ink. "Plan x: 10 pages/month" meaning that you get the amount of ink you need per month to print 10 average pages, not that once you get the ink you need to keep paying for it.

> I honestly thought all the marketing materials I've seen were quite clear about how the service was billed. I don't think changing the name would lead to more or less confusion or sales.

It's very clear how it works.

But sadly, the people that created the program don't spend enough time on the Internet to learn that the way the general public perceives things often does not match reality.

Ever since Instant Ink started, the Internet has been flooded with morons that think they're geniuses by thinking they can buy 1 month of Instant Ink, cancel the sub, and then keep using the cartridges they think they paid $3 for.

If you sub to Instant Ink, you never owned the ink cartridges. At best, you're renting them. Once you decide to stop paying the rent, you don't get to keep using them. I don't know why some people struggle with this.

> I don't know why some people struggle with this.

Because the internet is flooded with idiots, this is a massive waste of perfectly good ink cardridges.

> So now the options are:

... or just let them keeps the 50 cents worth of ink and consider it good customer service, let them leave on a positive note so they hopefully choose to come back, rather than burning the bridge? Why do they have to invent some system of enforcement beyond "just don't send any more cartidges"?

While subscribed, cartridges are free and you're billed per page. If you could keep the cartridges, canceling would potentially net you many hundreds of extra pages for free. And you could cancel again and again.

I think the incentive to cancel right after receiving a new cartridge would be extremely high, to the point of rendering the whole service non-viable.

HP would have to limit how frequently customers can cancel, institute a waiting period before resubscribing, or track individual abusers and issue lifetime bans.

Some numbers to demonstrate the above point:

The first result for genuine HP ink cartridge on amazon is $23, and has a claimed yield of 170 pages. Meanwhile, the cheapest plan for HP instant ink is $0.99/month. If you could subscribe for the cheapest plan, then instantly cancel, you're basically getting a 96% discount on ink cartridges.

> If you could keep the cartridges, canceling would potentially net you many hundreds of extra pages for free. And you could cancel again and again

Solution: non-refundable first month, make it greater than cost of first ink cartridge. Risk removed.

That eliminates the risk of any angry customer with disabled ink.

However, the new problem is that most customers would rather have the current situation pay as you go situation than pay up front.

Id be dammed if I pay full price for a product AND a subscription. If it is a 50% discount (as advertised), the customer is still looking at 3 cartridges before they break even.

> And you could cancel again and again.

Don't you have to buy a printer first? Am I missing something here?

> But at the same time: consumers are choosing to buy this subscription.

I wonder how many understand what they're buying into here. It was certainly very far from clear to me.

I thought it was an "ink subscription service." That is, you pay your monthly fee and they provide a continual stream of ink to you.

But apparently, it's not that at all. Instead, it's "printing as a service".

>I thought it was an "ink subscription service." That is, you pay your monthly fee and they provide a continual stream of ink to you.

The pricing section very clearly mentions pages, not ink cartridges. Also, the first FAQ question literally says:

>How does HP Instant Ink work?

>HP Instant Ink is based on pages, not cartridges [...]

Yeah, I understand now. I was 100% not interpreting any of that as meaning what HP means by it.

I was thinking that they were using "pages" as a means of measuring the quantity of ink in a way that people can understand, not as literally meaning "pages".

I thought that way because I really believed HP was offering an ink subscription service, and my interpretation is the only one that makes sense if that's what it was.

But it's not. This feels intentionally ambiguous to me. Perhaps it's not, but I bet my interpretation of what they're saying is not rare.

I remain very pleased to avoid HP inkjets, regardless.

> The pricing section very clearly mentions pages, not ink cartridges.

When you buy a cartridge it's also measured in pages but you are neither guaranteed that many pages nor limited to that many pages.

> The problem is that OP cancelled their subscription shortly after receiving a new cartridge. So now the options are:

>• Make OP return the cartridge.

>• Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!)

>• Prevent OP from using the cartridge

• Let the customer use up the remaining ink as a gesture of goodwill so they do not hate HP forever with the rage of 1000 forest fires?

> consumers are choosing to buy this subscription.

The will never again once experience this.

Honestly, people have to remember that customers are not a value in a cell in a spreadsheet.

> • Let the customer use up the remaining ink as a gesture of goodwill so they do not hate HP forever with the rage of 1000 forest fires?

You think people should be able to buy 1 month of Instant Ink, cancel, and keep the cartridges they paid $3 for?

Look at the reaction to Adobe's behavior when people terminate their yearly subscription early and are still required to pay for the entire contract. They're not selling Photoshop by month, it's installments on a yearly contract.

Depends on the actual cost of that first ink cartridge. If it's $3 or less, then by all means let them have it. If it is over, then adjust your subscription's start cost to fit.

You're still opening yourself up to massive losses in profit.

Profit that is desperately needed since the printer itself is being sold at a loss.

> Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!)

I feel like this is the only reasonable solution? We do this for mobile phones and leased cars as well. I think it’s fairly well understood.

I think that would be reasonable, but isn't it actually a lot less consumer friendly than the current system?

I don’t think so? It feels fair to me that I should pay for something that I’m going to keep using, and unfair (and wasteful) that a company would brick a perfectly good ink cardridge.

Thats exactly how it works, except you are paying ahead of time for a bundle of pages and then there is a cost to add more if you need them.

https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/instant-ink/plans.html

You are paying $6 for 100 pages. Then you can add 10 pages for $1 (that amount changes based on the subscription).

We can argue that the program has some scummy aspects but if we are going to argue about this we should at least look up how it actually works here.

> You are paying $6 for 100 pages.

WHAT?!

That's insanely expensive. You'd think they'd have to beat the prices to print things out at the local copy shop, at least.

I think that's more-or-less in line with the cost of HP ink cartridges.

The real moral of this story is that people should stop buying HP printers, or at least HP inkjet printers.

(For a laugh, see also The Verge's 2023 Printer Buying Guide: https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-...)

Are you are that is expensive?

Where I am printing a black and white document is around $0.20.

A color print is $0.60.

So 100 black and white pages would be $20 and color would be $60.

Sure you have to add paper to that calculation but considering that is a 500 count for $10-15 thats still makes it cheaper wether you are doing black and white or color.

Now yes you do have to take into account the cost of the machine.

Well, it's expensive compare to copy shops around here. Color prints in very low quantities start at 5 cents per page. If you are printing a lot of pages, the per page price starts to drop.

From what I can tell I can't find anything like that near me.

I justified buying a brother laser printer about a year ago after running the numbers for low to mid levels of printing and it just didn't make sense to spend as much as the places around me were charging.

It would be an interesting thing to look at what the pricing for things like this actually is around the country to see if something like this actually makes sense.

If I was doing a super low volume (but consistent) of prints I could see how the math on one of these lower plans makes sense given the options around me.

If you're willing to share, I am curious to know where you can get color copies starting at 5 cents per page. Although I don't spend much time looking at copy shop prices, I have never seen prices even close to that low.

It's a mom & pop copy shop near me. I'm sorry, I don't want to identify them because I don't want to publicize my location that precisely.

It's the only copy shop I use, so I have no idea if their pricing is unusually low or not. I assumed it isn't that different in other shops, but it might be.

It's very low - Staples starts at 20 cents a page for B&W.

HP's plan also drops prices when you subscribe to more pages.

$1/month -> 10 pages $4/month -> 50 pages $6/month -> 100 pages $12/month -> 300 pages $25/month -> 700 pages

In my mind, the value for the consumer is at the lower prices, where it's nice to have a printer for a few pages a month, but you know the ink is going to dry in the cartridge before you use it. I'd think HP's program will send you a new cartridge when you need it in that case, but I don't know. At higher volumes, it's probably less expensive to buy cartridges as needed, unless all your prints are full page coverage. But then ink jet has a weird niche; it's cheap, but it's worse for low volume printing because the ink can dry and foul the machine, and it's worse at high volume because the print speed isn't near laser (or highvolume impact!) and the supplies are expensive. It's great if you print a few pages a week to a few pages a day. Warm up time can be better or worse, depending on how long it takes to squirt all the ink into the sponge before it prints.

While I have long sworn off HP, I have been curious about this for 2 big reasons.

1. is the one you mentioned with drying ink. I have to imagine that given some of the low print volumes that they are anticipating this and it is part of the system?

2. Related to this, are they smart enough to send lower or higher volume ink cartridges based on your plan and usage.

It kinda makes sense that neither of these are outlined in the FAQ since ink management is supposed to be on HP's side with this. But I am curious (not enough to buy a printer and sign up though)

So having a print service for average price At Home is make sense.

It's actually pretty competitive. The 100 pages plan is £4.49/month in UK. If you use them all that's 4.5p a page. They can all be full colour photos if you like.

My multifunction printer cost £50 and a ream of paper (500 sheets) is about £6.

Commercial printers charge 10-30p a sheet. I even have an acquaintance with a pay per click service contract on his huge Konica Minolta photocopier who seems to pay the same per click as I do.

“HP Instant Ink” is the name of the product.

When we use “Windows” we don’t complain that they’re not real windows. When we use a Mac, we don’t complain that it’s not real Macintosh apples. It’s just a name.

As the parent commenter says, you pay explicitly for a quota of printed pages, not ink or anything else. Therefore, they do define a price per page, anywhere from 10c on their cheapest plan down to 3.57c on their most expensive.

Is it a shitty practice? Certainly. But you explicitly dont pay for ink, regardless of the name of the product.

People aren't complaining about the name Windows or Macintosh being misleading. When companies are misleading about their products, they can be sued for it (look at Veggie Straws or Hagen Daas. Here are more: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b13444ce-27b4...)

The point is, you can't just throw your arms up and say "oh well what a coincidental name HP selected for their product". Misleading names can have a real business impact and might even be intentionally misleading.

Oh please, are you going to complain that the ink also isn’t magically teleported to your door? It is called “Instant Ink” after all. It’s the product’s name, so clearly it must be a factual description of what it does.

The subscription is more than clear. Please show me where it claims in any way shape or form that you are buying a cartridge of ink that you can keep using after your subscription. I’m waiting.

I mean, just looking at the product page it's all about receiving ink in a timely manner. It's not until you get to the poorly-named Ink Plans that you see that it's actually all about pages.

Did you read the same page I did?

Because it’s called a “printing plan” the entire way until you get to the pricing section, where they use “ink plans” to obviously distinguish it from the “toner plans” next to it.

It also actively talks about pricing being per page, replacements per pages printed, literally everything talks about it being based on pages printed. It even explicitly tells you you won’t get cartridges regularly, but based on pages printed. It’s more than clear that the whole thing is based off pages printed and not the ink itself.

It even explicitly goes over this in the FAQ on the homepage:

> The subscription cartridges only work while your printer is enrolled in HP Instant Ink service, so you will need to purchase store-bought cartridges after your final billing cycle to continue printing.

It’s like you’re trying to manufacture the outrage on the spot based on a loose skimming and the appearance of keywords.

> It’s like you’re trying to manufacture the outrage on the spot based on a loose skimming and the appearance of keywords.

Good advertising should only require loose skimming to know what they're trying to sell you.

Did anyone say they had good advertising? No.

Are they transparent about the pricing being per page, the actual thing we’re discussing? Yes.

The goal posts are over there. Gotta love the fact you ignored all of the points in favor of a bad strawman. As I said, manufactures outrage.

The goal post you're debating is a low bar for reasonable business practices.

Okay so you have no actual rebuttal of my points. Thanks for making it abundantly clear.

That's because you disagree that the issue is about good advertising. The page isn't as clear-cut as you've pointed out. It's also worth mentioning that buying a new InkJet printer is also tacked on with 2 years of "ink" advertised as "Up to 2 years of ink in bottles included in the box." that is also actually based on pages. Searching for HP InkJet on your search engine of choice will show how it's an "ink and toner monthly subscriptions" in their snippets. It's a shady business practice that we shouldn't be encouraging at all.

Abundantly clear landing page which calls it a printing subscription, explains exactly what you pay for and what happens when you cancel, and how to continue printing with your own purchased ink after you cancel is "misleading". Definitely.

A landing page that doesn't mention pages until you scroll halfway down to their pricing plans and see "10 pages/mo.", the details of the plan hidden behind a collapsed accordion, adding a subscription to all new printers to lock users in. _Definitely_ not misleading.

> You can cancel or change your plan anytime. If you don't use all of your pages, they automatically rollover to the next month.

> HP Instant Ink uses high-volume cartridges, pricing based on pages printed, and direct-to-customer shipping delivered only when you run low.

> You’ll get your first cartridges when you sign up and then receive replacement cartridges based on how much you print—not every month, like other subscriptions.

Ok, Jan.

This was called out in literally my very first reply to you. I'm done with this bullshit. I'd say have a good day, but I'd rather hope you didn't.

Sorry, Ctrl + F only found "Can I change or cancel my plan anytime?". The rest of those are hidden in those accordions (I assume, didn't check). Hope you have a good Monday and your printer mysteriously stops working.

Those three quotes are literally not in the FAQ but go off sis.

You really can't bother to even look at the page can you? Jesus fucking Christ, the audacity.

Are you gaslighting me?

Ctrl + F "high-volume cartridges" = no results found

Ctrl + F "first cartridges" = no results found

Edit: And this is the page I'm looking at https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/cv/instantink

> Good advertising should only require loose skimming to know what they're trying to sell you.

In my experience, good advertising is the opposite - it requires extensive reading about what they're trying to sell you - because it's good advertising, not a good encyclopedia.

> It’s the product’s name, so clearly it must be a factual description of what it does.

Nope. If it's misleading, it doesn't matter. Names don't have to be verbatim, but they should not be misleading.

> show me where it claims in any way shape or form that you are buying a cartridge of ink that you can keep using after your subscription

Not my claim. What I'm saying is that I believe the name and advertising could be seen as misleading in a similar way to existing class action lawsuits. It doesn't matter that the hpconnected site is ranked higher in google; the hp.com site for instantink is pretty misleading as seen in all the points in the other thread.

Maybe you don't think veggie straws was misleading either, but a class action lawsuit [1] came of it. My original point was that the name of the product is more significant than you implied in your comment.

1: https://truthinadvertising.org/class-action/sensible-portion...

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