HP CEO Makes Up a Whole Lot of Bullshit to Defend Crippling Printers
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This is the problem. If they stopped trying to loss lead the printers, and just sold them for a healthy margin above cost of production, this whole issue would go away.
I’m purchasing a printer with the hope that it spits out pages reliably with as few jams as possible for a reasonable price.
As I get older I’m starting to think that we need to regulate this whole “sell things at a loss in order to maximize profits at a future date” phenomenon. Not that I have any idea what such a regulatory scheme would look like…
A printer is never an “investment”, it’s always a “liability” because it won’t increase in value if you sell it.
A printer customer, however, is an asset because HP can always use new dirty tricks to squeeze more money out of you over time.
It’s a pedantic difference but it gets to the heart of how these MBA sociopaths see their customers; something to gouge.
Only people who do TCO would buy the long-run cheaper option, just like most people buy cheap clothing rather than something that will last.
That's possible, and there are "loss leaders" in industries and in retail, but I'd like to see the proof. Maybe the printer refills make it a great business and the printers alone are merely a good business?
Do you have any numbers for their gross margin on the printers? Because if it's not negative, then his "investment" claim is indeed BS.
https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch01.html
> In true engineer-to-engineer fashion, the conversation was cordial but blunt. After briefly introducing himself as a visitor from MIT, Stallman requested a copy of the laser-printer source code so that he could port it to the PDP-11. To his surprise, the professor refused to grant his request.
>"He told me that he had promised not to give me a copy," Stallman says.
I don't get why people buy inkjets at all. You can get laser or CISS.
Because people don't know. They go to the store and buy the cheapest one. They don't consider ink costs, and so they end up saving $50 up front and then losing $500 over the life of the printer. The "just buy a Brother laser printer" advice is not widespread.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Whew, that’s a good one. Let me catch my breath.
I once had a mid range HP inkjet. Think it cost about $200. Only printed a few times a year. It would go through 3-4 ink cartridges per year, with me printing almost nothing. Ink was cheap, about $30. Pretty much needed a new ink cartridge every time I printed. Was a networked printer, didn’t even see the computer reboot, etc.
That damn thing easily cost over $100/year doing nothing.
Would have lasted forever if I hadn’t thrown it away in mint condition.
Eventually got a laser printer…
Toner is expensive, but it at least doesn’t evaporate! (I lowered calibration frequency settings too)
Because not all inkjets are crap. I have an HP Deskjet 4515 Ink Advantage. This thing doesn't dry out, prints out beautiful text and photos. Even though the color inks are not pigment, they do not fade out in 5 years.
The inks are cheap, last a long time, and that thing works with everything from macOS to CUPS to driverless (AirPrint, Driverless CUPS, etc.).
Bottom of the barrel printers are always bad, regardless of technology. What you want is high-end home, or entry level SoHo printers with proper network support, replaceable rollers (in lasers) and good firmware.
These devices are not cheap, and most of them are not sold with razor and blades model. You pay a good money for the hardware, and that thing lives on for more than a decade with top notch reliability.
I'd buy original cartridges to my printers everyday, because a good printer is worthy of the investment, and there's something called ink/toner quality. It's not colored water (or simple black dust) to begin with.
These companies do not have ink/toner labs for no reason.
I can't stop laughing. He can't be serious? If this was true, it would HP's fault for putting a chip in the cartridges in the first place! A cartridge should just be a container of ink, there shouldn't be a place to put a virus.
This is basically the definition of Racketeering!
If you don't need color, buy a B&W laser.
If you need photo quality, print them at Walmart.
News from over a week ago.
Some more discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39060793
It's a 20 second job to remove the chip from the original and insert into the new cartridge. Completely agree it's not something that you should need to do, but at least it's an issue you can work around with a bread knife
I've used both genuine and aftermarket Toner for the Lasers and the same for the Label printers without issue.
For label printers, avoid Dymo like the plague. They stopped Linux support and now include bidirectional RFID chips in their label spools to lock out after-market supplies. The remaining label count is decremented on the chip as you print.
I need to replace my printer and will go with a laser, but I've been getting such mixed signals about various brands that I have no idea which one would be acceptable. I'd love to hear that Brother is an acceptable one.
I didn't have any other objections to the printer, for what it's worth.
The label printers are 5+ year old QL-500 (x 3) and a ~3 month old QL-810W (x 2 at he office). I really hope they're not taking the DRM route for future models!
[1] https://www.inkstation.com.au/brother-mfcl3760cdw-toner-cart...