this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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'Our long-term objective is to make printing a subscription' says HP CEO gunning for 2024's Worst Person of the Year award | Not satisfied with merely bricking printers, HP now wants to own them al...::It was only the other day we reported how HP has been slapped with a lawsuit in response to measures that disable its printers when fitted with a third-party ink cartridge. Now the company's CEO,

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[–] [email protected] 133 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I will thank him for his honesty and straight forward communication. I now know never to buy an HP printer.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I have a Brother laserjet I got on Amazon for $70 10 years ago. I print on it occasionally, and it always works. That thing has never needed new toner. It never jams. It just keeps going. Highly recommend finding a basic laserjet model from that brand.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I, too, love my old Brother laser printer. Their website is absolute garbage though. I don't know what they did to it, but it is just slow as hell.

Definitely spend the extra $10 for duplex printing or regret it for the rest of your life.

(Seriously, why even make non-diplex printers?)

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (15 children)

Just happened today:

Employee asks for toner for an aging HP Laserjet printer since it’s out. I look it up and it’s $198 for black (it’s not a color laser). I immediately looked up a Brother laser with an ADF scanner/copier and it was $199. High Yield Toner is $15 without a chip from a reputable 3rd party. Office is getting a new Brother printer delivered tomorrow and it’ll work 100x better.

HP, this is how you kill your printer division. Short sighted idiots.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (18 children)

Why would anyone buy such a printer? You could just go to a print shop at that point. Though honestly that’s already what I do so maybe it’s for the hikikomori or something. I don’t know why the home printer still exists in this day and age.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

If I'm expected to pay a subscription that means every single aspect of the experience has to be outsourced to HP. And I'm including set up, cleaning and maintenance, consumables, and sending a man out to clear my paper jams for me, too. That's how it works at the print shop -- I put in money, they hand me prints completed to my specifications. Whatever happens in between those two events is not my problem.

But of course that won't be the case, so they can fuck off.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (2 children)

This is relatively common in the office world. Lease the copier/printer and it comes with free maintenance or replacement. Complete overkill for home printers though.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Or go-to your local library, ours charges an exorbitant fee of a penny/page and gives $2 for printing for free for new library card holders lmao

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Shit I forgot libraries offer this service. Even better.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I don’t know why the home printer still exists in this day and age.

Legal shit.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

I have a few edge cases where a printer is nice to have and I don't need the quality of a print shop, I find proofreading documents to be a lot easier on a physical paper easier than a screen and I can mark changes, and when I'm playing TTRPGs I like to have a printout of my map with enemy locations and notes so that I can place everything on my battle mat the way I intended to without messing with tablets, phones or laptops.

Even with the time it takes for me to drive to the nearest Staples and have them print it (all in all probably an hour long trip), having a cheap printer on hand saves the time and money spent getting a printout after like 2 printouts.

At the end lf the day it's not about the usefulness or obsolescence of the printer. It's about the bullshit subscription services have unnecessarily wormed their way into every aspect of our lives. If I buy something, it's mine, I own it, nobody else should be able to tell me what to do with it, beyond things that are already illegal.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 months ago (6 children)

How much I would love if EU pulled a USB-C on printer ink/toner.

“All printers must be compatible with one of these X possible formats of ink/toner. Lockdown is forbidden too”

Sure the printers would be more expensive but I am sure we would see an incredible improvement in quality and decrease in ink/toner cost

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Sure the printers would be more expensive but I am sure we would see an incredible improvement in quality and decrease in ink/toner cost

Probably because everyone but Brother would step out of the market.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 46 points 9 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (4 children)
  1. Buy Brother, better printers without all this subscription garbage.

  2. How long before an 'open source' printer hots the market and terrifies this idiot CEO?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If he hasn't been scared by Xerox, Brother, and Epson, he won't be scared by a FLOSS printer. At this point, the only people who buy HP printers are those who don't even google it and remember hearing the laserjets were good circa 1995.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago (2 children)

And since the CEO said this I will literally never buy an HP product again period

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Very happy with my Brother laser printer so far. It just works. Hasn't held my prints hostage for any online ink subscription renewals... yet...

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Greedy rent-seeking garbage humans would make breathing a subscription if they could. And the sad and scary part is that for some reason there are people ready and willing to pay for the Premium Oxygen Subscription Plus with unlimited breaths per day and the Gold Blinking Packaage added for free for the first month ($99.95 after that)...

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The irony is that even that satire didn't envision something so cartoonishly evil as a subscription business model.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's simple actually. Don't buy HP products. Even their laptops have huge quality issues and flawed motherboard designs. Their firmware updates are known to brick motherboards. Even if you are under warranty, they won't give you a new board, instead they'll give you a refurbished board. FUCK YOU HP.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago

That is quite funny, my objective since 20 years ago is to not buy anything with the HP logo.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago

With each new HP news article I grow more pleased with last year’s decision to ditch HP once and for all and get a Brother.

The Brother just works. Even surprises me in some scenarios where I anticipate lack of support and it comes through anyway. Great printer!

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (8 children)

This is why for the one or two times I need to print something a year I just go to the library and pay them $0.10 a page to print something out.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

I bought a refurbished laser printer at a garage sale for $30 8 years ago. Still printing off the original toner

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (3 children)

what a literal fucking psychopath. i mean literally imagine waking up and thinking these things. imagine trying to actively make the world worse like this.

oh yeah i'm trying to make bathrooms a subscription

i'm trying to make food a subscription

i'm trying to make tv a subscription

i'm trying to make clothes a subscription

i cannot wait to live in paradise

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (3 children)

This really doesn't seem like a very good long-term investment. Over time people are printing less, not more.

If you make it difficult to print they'll make the active effort to move away from your product, which is especially bad given the people are moving away from printing in general anyway.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (5 children)

I don't own a printer because the cost to constantly refill cartrages feels like a subscription already. I just go to the UPS store for the 3 times a year I actually need to print something, on a for-realsies printer that someone else maintains. usually costs less than a dollar every time I go.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago

The moral of the story is don't buy HP anything. Already trying to replace our large format latex printer from HP over this. Fuck that guy.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

Canon understands that selling a printer with a maintenance contract is a viable way to do business...to business.

That's a place where the option is very much appreciated.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This guy is unbelievable. Who the hell would pay a subscription to print? I print maybe once every two months and I have my own company.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

And companies that need to print more frequently probably already have some kind of subscription, because there are already printing companies that fill that niche.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Most people shouldn't buy a home printer at all anymore. Unless you're a crafter or work in a field that still uses lots of paper (i.e. law) they're not worth it.

It's a rapidly shrinking market and HP knows there's no saving it so I guess they're following the cable company playbook.

Squeeze your remaining customers as hard as possible before the music stops

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hey another article about the shit-on-fire that is HP printers.

Welcome new wtf-is-this-HP consumers! Be assured that HP has trafficked in bullshit around their printers for many, many years! Today is no fucking different and tomorrow won’t be either.

Feel free to launch your HP printer into the sun, as that's the most enjoyment you’ll ever get out of it. And be sure to watch for the next “Woah, HP printers are fascist garbage” article, due out soon!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Whyyyyy would you actually say this out loud? We all know it’s a dick move but I’m curious what would possess them to actually broadcast it? Like you’re not supposed say the quiet parts out loud. Right?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

because they are mask off, they feel they are owed the money the subs would generate. They feel like they are untouchable because the system protects them

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (15 children)

Does an "open-source printer" exist?

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

Eat shit HP. I will eat bag of dicks before I even think of touching their shitty printers

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (10 children)

Obligatory Brother Laser Printer comment.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

Got it. Not to buy hp printer.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

As an IT worker who is regularly subjected to dealing with printers, HP is by far the worst I have to deal with. They are shit from the build quality to the bloated borderline spyware software they push to the awful web interface. If you are considering an HP printer just don’t. It’s a better investment to go buy anything else.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No where in there was anything about what the consumer wants or needs. Just theirs

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I won't be buying another HP printer, ever.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It's well known that printers are routinely sold at a loss, with the real revenues made from selling replacement ink cartridges.

I don't think that's a sustainable business anymore.

We've been using laser for 16 years now, because ink is expensive, and it doesn't even help much to use it only sparingly, because then the cartridges dry out.
We bought a color laser 10 years ago, and it's still going strong on only the 2nd set of cartridges (original + 1 set purchased). We have very little use for prints now, as all mail is electronic here now, and yes I mean all, even papers that needs to be signed are done electronically now.
So we print maybe 2 sheets average per month, last prints was my wife printing music scores to practice. The ones before that I can't even remember.

People in school basically all levels are turning papers in electronically too. I don't see where a lot of printing is still needed?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I have printer in my house, that has about 3 years of dust on it. It is not hooked up to my home wifi and I don't even know if it can work. Last Year I only need to print some thing twice. So I just drove down to the fedex kinkos and printed there.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (9 children)

It is unfortunate that they keep trying to make a subscription out of something that does not have an ongoing infrastructure need at the company’s side.

On the other hand, I wonder how this could affect open source firmware to avoid e-waste. I read a thread about open source firmware for robot vacuums and there will surely be open source (if there is not already) for printers.

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