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Comment by pocketarc | Hacker News Reader

I print maybe once or twice a year. In the past, my workflow was: "need to print, realize cartridge has dried out because it's been so long, go buy a ridiculously-priced new cartridge, finally print the 1 page I needed to".

For the past several years I've had an HP printer, with a subscription that costs £0 unless I print more than 10 pages (at which point it'd cost £1 per 10 extra pages). They send me ink for free automatically, and I never had to worry about it. The printer was stupid cheap.

It's honestly the best printer deal I could've asked for. I'm completely OK with it. It's convenient, virtually free, and I haven't had to think about cartridges in a long, long time.

I don't know -anything- about how HP treats its customers, I'm sure there's lots of horror stories. But... I'm very happy with the current situation, and unless I needed to print more regularly, I don't think I'd ever change.

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If you're printing once or twice a year, is it worth owning a printer? I just go to the library or print shop when I (very rarely) need to print something.

Matter of preference of course, but I'd rather the occasional errand over the subscription/troubleshooting/physical storage.

What is this subscription deal ? It looks great. I bought HP Printer because it was the cheapest I could "throw away", because I need to print one page every X years because one stupid legacy organization accepts only paper, but in my case the ink is still drying between two pages.

I paid $100 for a canon laserjet printer from walmart, had it for about two years, still prints on the first included toner cartridge.

I run dnd games and my players like having printed maps and props, so I use it more than once a year, but I’ll never buy inkjet again.

tl;dr version: You sign up for a monthly recurring payment and in return HP monitor your ink levels and number of pages printed, and mail you out new ink as you need it. If you print more than the included pages per month they will charge you an overage. If you stop paying the monthly fee they revoke access to the ink you already have in your procession (ink provided by the subscription service - they don't revoke any ink you have purchased from your local store for example, just to clear.).

My advice, If you only need to print once in a blue moon, get a refrub'ed "office grade" laser printer off eBay (or similar). I picked one up about 10 years ago with 64,000~ prints on it for about £50, and apart from having having to change out some foam pads that had disintegrated over the years, its still printing just fine. Only had to refill the toner once (I don't print a lot) and because the drum and fuser were fine I just ordered a bottle of toner refill.

EDIT: Reread your post. As you are only printing a single page every couple of years, I would adjust my advice. You might be able to ditch the printer completely, When you do need to print use a local library or similar to do the one off print. My local library charges 15p per side for black and 50p per side for colour prints.

Sure I wouldn't use them to print large amounts or even small amounts regularly, but for very very low usage paying a quid once in a blue moon to use someone elses printer and then you can leave the maintenance of the printer to someone else. But granted, you would then have to travel to a place just to print, and if you need to get the document printed ASAP, it might not be the best thing for you. But its another option to consider.

No monthly recurring payment in the UK - I was paying £0, unless I went over 10 pages.

In the US you do have to pay $1.5/mo.

UK prices these days start at £1.50 p/m for their light package. https://instantink.hpconnected.com/uk/en/l/v2 - guess you were grandfathered into to their free package, or was a promo with your printer.

Either grandfathered (I signed up in 2019) or it might've been a new change - I left the UK last year so if it was introduced last year, that would make sense. Good to know though, so I don't keep saying "oh yeah it was free".

Yep, this is exactly my situation - look up HP Instant Ink for your country, hopefully it'll be of use.

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