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Comment by bestouff | Hacker News Reader

I'm out of the loop. Could someone explain the original trick ?

The HP trick was that HP started shipping “WiFi only” printers, they put a sticker over the USB port saying something like “for service only” or something similar to encourage the user to connect and use the printer over WiFi. However if you peeled the sticker away and plugged in a USB cable you could still use the printer like normal.

I’m guessing thermaltake did the same, hiding some pins behind a sticker because that’s cheaper than creating a whole new version of an existing product.

I've done this when executives decry any PC with PS/2 ports as obsolete, but are perfectly happy with the same PC sans PS/2 ports.

I remember older PCs that shipped with graphics card - but had onboard graphics, too. They’d cover the VGA port on the motherboard so that customers would plug into the right one.

But if you configured windows right, you could use both and have a second monitor.

Was the wifi only printer cheaper for the consumer? I mean they would save a few pennies for not needing to ship a USB cable but I can't see that being a big enough win for them to add a step to their manufacturing process to add that sticker. Same with the PSU on the photo, although in that case I can imagine they were able to remove some more of the internals and target a different market.

Also, this reminds me of a common CPU manufacturing practice; most CPUs from a generation are the exact same, except that the ones with flaws in them will have that part of the CPU disabled / severed and the unit sold as a slower and cheaper model.

It's not about the USB cable, it's about getting the device on the purchaser's network so it can phone home with all kinds of juicy telemetry that may (in the case of consumables) or may not (in the case of other data gathered from the network) have anything to do printing.

HP (and printer manufacturers generally) have long led the way in enshittification.

In the case of HP, it's because they sell printers where you get a discount on the price of the hardware if you promise to sign up for an ink subscription, and that requires the printer to phone home with the ink levels.

Just recently brought my brother a cheap cannon inkjet [1] and that didn't come with a USB cable, I don't think (esp at the lower end) they give two craps about bundling a cable any more because either the customer already has one (which my brother did) or they will just pick one up at the same time as getting the printer.

> Also, this reminds me of a common CPU manufacturing practice; most CPUs from a generation are the exact same, except that the ones with flaws in them will have that part of the CPU disabled / severed and the unit sold as a slower and cheaper model.

Happens in the oscilloscope market all the time, create one unit per "family" of products and keep locking features away until you have created every model between the bells and whistles and the budget models (Obv its hard to "software lock" extra channels :-P but I've seen even sample rate/memory depth being software limited, and big jumps in sample size/memory depth will often have different internals), as for placing a sticker on a unit, well the printer out of the box is covered in stickers to prevent things moving about during shipping so I don't see it that much of a PITA to add one more over a USB port to encourage the user onto the network to make it easier for it to phone home. (though that doesn't "explain" the PSU case, just gonna presume that it doesn't cost too much in labor where the PSU is manufactured/packaged to add a sticker)

[1] yes, yes, I know, shoulda gone laser/led... And if it was for me I would have gone laser/led, But he aint the brightest tool in the shed, the cannon was cheap (so if it breaks its not the end of the world), printhead is in the cartridge so if it clogs, its just a new cartridge, and his old cheap inkjet lasted over 10 years before that died. And while he don't print a ton, he wants colour, not take up a ton of space, and not cost a fuck ton (he aint too bothered about on-going costs as he will just buy 3rd party ink from the local supermarket. So Inkjet it was.

side note: went cannon because fuck HP's Instant Ink BS :-P

Printers traditionally never come with cables.

> they would save a few pennies for not needing to ship a USB cable

Very few printers I've unboxed actually shipped with a USB-cable... They always use USB-B ports which nobody has cables for and seldom include a cable in the packaging, infuriating.

I’m old/crusty enough to remember parallel cables not being shipped with printers.

What do you mean "old enough"? They still don't ship parallel cables with printers. :D

It's not just in CPUs. The government stipulates this in munitions that are sold / given / whatever to other countries, including allies. They agree to send bombs with guidance accurate to 10m, then send some bombs capable of guidance accurate to 1m, but with that capability locked out.

Source: I interviewed for a job attempting to hack these munitions to re-enable the functionality, as a cross-check that they were locked out well.

Apparently there's more to this. They're blocking the usb port to get the user to set up over wifi first, not because it's non functional. Why does a printer need to be set up over wifi? Because certain models are tied to hp ink's subscription service and sold at a discount.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37007036

This is exactly what they do.

Not to worry, they also region lock the ink as well.

I wonder what happens when car companies increasingly connect their vehicles to cell towers?

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscription...

(I believe they rolled it back after an outcry)

They will make using an app on a vendor-locked smartphone the only way to unlock the doors, start the engine etc.

People have started identifying and pulling the fuses on vehicles' cell radios. I would also be interested in digging down to the radio itself and replacing the antenna with a dummy load.

That may create a parasitic battery drain if I radio is constantly seeking connection to a cell tower and not finding it. Subaru experienced a similar problem with their StarLink service after the 3G network shut down, car batteries started draining while trying to talk to towers that no longer existed.

Things such as this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37971038

Buy HP from costco. They don't have the DRM.

Better still is to not reward companies for customer-hostile design and buy a different brand. Brother laser printers are my recommendation as ink-jets end up costing a lot more and involve more faffing around with trying to clear dried nozzles after they're not used for a while.

Brother printers are really something. I recently replaced my old Brother laser with a new one and was surprised to find that it's just as "it just works" as the last one was (which was also surprising).

I connected it to the network, and boom, everything I have can print. Didn't need to install drivers on most things (but the printer utility is handy). You can send it documents via IPP, but also any other protocol that might be a good way to get a document to a printer, including USB, POP3, IMAP, LPR, and like a dozen other options. It feels like one of their engineers sat down at one point and just went through every possible protocol they could think of and implemented a module for it, and they just kept it that way for the last 10+ years.

Plus second-hand toner just works, no DRM, and toner is relatively cheap all in all. I'm not getting screwed by them on printing cost, and if I were I can go somewhere else for my consumables.

brother has in the past pushed automatic updates to lock out third party toner

Can I ask what model you have?

Or don't buy HP =)

Some HP printers had USB port covered by a sticker with warning not to use it, but it works just fine.

https://boingboing.net/2023/08/04/hp-printer-usb-port-covere...

I think it's something along the lines of there being a model of HP printer which was advertised as being wifi-only, and apparently had no USB port, but if you removed a strategically-placed sticker you'd find this was a lie.

Judging by the picture, that CPU has a sticker over one of the power ports. Just peel it back and you've upgraded your PSU.

A quick google confirms that some HP Printers have USB ports that are covered similarly, but with a warning not to use it, rather than just being hidden.

Sir, did you just call that PSU a CPU?

This reminds me of the late 90s computer illiteracy... the monitor was the "computer", and the computer was the "hard drive" :)

And everything was the modem.

Today everything is a router.

It probably is to some extent, too.

My router is a firewall, VPN, DNS server, file server, print server, media server, and Docker host. Like, what can't it do?

BTW, I don't use most of those services but it's advertised with them.

Well, seeing that a modern Apple monitor has the guts of an iPhone 11 and runs a version of iOS…

OMG. Yup, I did. I have no defense for this.

Edit: I got it right the second time, though! :D

Nothing wrong with a Central Power Unit!

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