10 ms·

HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals

662 points by jeremylevy 3y ago

denton-scratch 3y ago
Do people still buy HP inkjets? They've been doing this kind of thing for a decade, I'd have thought they should have seen their customerbase wither away by now.
- whoopdedo 3y ago
  Name recognition is a hell of a drug.
classified 3y ago
What they've managed to achieve with this is that I'll never buy an HP printer ever again.
arlattimore 3y ago
If you're going to use corporate fines, they'll need to be per instance and massive or large corporations like HP will just pay the fine and keep doing it.
FaridIO 3y ago
I think Hacker News has enough tech-savvy people who are asked for advice by friends and family to make a dent. Let's make companies regret decisions like this.
UberFly 3y ago
Geeze, what if you accidentally buy a counterfeit ink item off eBay or something?
- timbit42 3y ago
  Buy another one. The printer will still work if you put in a real HP one.
WalterBright 3y ago
Selling something, and then remotely disabling it without the purchaser's knowledge or consent, sounds like vandalism to me.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  I would imagine their claim (probably written somewhere when you bought it) is that they do not guarantee it will work with any third-party components.
- perihelions 3y ago
  Sounds like a CFAA felony (unauthorized access) and I couldn't cogently be able to explain why it's not. (Because of a hidden clause in the ToS? Can you hide "we'll install ransomware on your PC" in a software ToS and enforce that, too? What's the very fine distinction between "we'll remotely disable your printer until you pay for exclusive, cryptographically-signed ink", and "we'll remotely encrypt your files and demand payments for the key?") (It's not a particularly new idea, to extort someone under the pretense of selling them a useful service (exclusive ink). That's just "protection racket" — I think?)
  - carlmr 3y ago
    At least in German law anything "surprising" in the ToS can't be enforced. This would definitely be surprising to most. So it couldn't legally be done with ToS.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    For me, when you "purchase" something, it's yours and you can do whatever the hell you want with it. If a "purchase" comes with "terms of use", it should not be classified as a purchase. It should be clearly labeled as "rent".
camhenlin 3y ago
Happens with their toner cartridges on laser printers too. I bought an HP laser, used some toner carts off Amazon, then got a software update and it wouldn’t recognize the toner carts. Had to replace them with HP cartridges from Staples at much higher cost to get back up and running, which I guess was their goal. Wouldn’t buy another one.
- lb1lf 3y ago
  Surely there must be a law against this? You buy a product capable of using any toner, then the manufacturer disables this feature without your consent to push their own margins up?
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  I'm not sure why a printer should need a firmware update. Even an MFP. Either it does what it's supposed to do when you buy it, or it's not fit for sale, and you return it. It should then just go on doing it's thing until it dies of old age, no?
nubinetwork 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090388
onepointsixC 3y ago
This doesn't sound legal, and if it is it shouldn't be.
- gabereiser 3y ago
  It’s not, they were sued for this practice a few years ago. They continue to do it.
  - auggierose 3y ago
    Did they lose the lawsuit?
    - gabereiser 3y ago
      https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/11/23635168/hp-printer-update-brick-third-party-ink-dynamic-security https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/11/23635168/hp-printer-updat... https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-printer-firmware-update-blocked-use-of-third-party-ink-toner-cartridges https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-prin...
  - eestrada 3y ago
    So long as the cost (fines, legal fees, lost revenue due to bad press) is less than the increase in revenue they receive from forcing users to buy their overprices cartridges, HP's behavior won't change. My most recent printer is an HP I bought at Costco because I knew it worked with CUPS and HPLIP on Linux and macOS. Given how many times I've seen HP pull this stunt though, I'll most likely shop for a different brand next time. Part of this is also that HP has captured a LOT of corporate printing locations. The cost of migration for those businesses, universities and organizations is huge. I think that is why they keep getting away with this. Even if individual consumers move away from HP, they still own a huge chunk of the corporate printing market.
seized 3y ago
Time to get a Brother.
- nubinetwork 3y ago
  Apparently they aren't all that great either... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131
  - ehPReth 3y ago
    Can confirm they've started chipping toner carts now :/. I have two Brother printers, one that takes TN-450s (no chip, can be reset via button sequence) and one that takes TN-760s (chip, no button sequence reset to say the cartridge is full). Both can be set to 'continue printing' when the cartridge is 'empty', though*. * Sometimes it "forgets" this setting, unsure the conditions to trigger that, but I imagine the retention sloppiness of this setting versus all the other ones it remembers (admin password, etc) is not an accident.
  - rahimnathwani 3y ago
    Anecdata about the same model: I have had a Brother MFC-L3750CDW for 3.5 years, and have printed over 5000 pages. Even though I always use third party toners, I haven't seen that color registration issue. Just now, I just went to the printer and let it do the 'calibration' and 'registration' steps. Then I printed a test image from the internet. None of the colours are offset.
- xanathar 3y ago
  Ask your parents, but be ware that it will take a few years for that to pay off. Oh wait, you meant...
bastard_op 3y ago
As the article states, HP has even been sued for this, yet continues to do it as it's a core part of their profits to keep people buying THEIR ink. Profit alone for the printer itself isn't worth it, they'd otherwise they'd not even bother making printers anymore, but that reoccurring revenue from ink is some sweet sweet cash. It's like google/fakebook/twits whining about people blocking ads or using encryption they can't harvest data from as their source of revenue. Worlds smallest violin.
- TobTobXX 3y ago
  Worlds smallest violin?
  - atom058 3y ago
    > Worlds smallest violin? It's a turn of phrase, where you are mocking someone by accompanying their expressed sadness (or whining) by "playing the world's smallest violin", e.g. by rubbing your fingers together
  - zczc 3y ago
    https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/
cubefox 3y ago
This issue is discussed for over 20 years now, it baffles me that there is apparently still no established solution. By the way, Apple forcing users to install apps only via its 30% fee AppStore has provoked far less outrage. Probably because people are not directly aware of the Apple premium, in contrast to the HP premium.
- cyberlurker 3y ago
  Whether you think it is a good value is up for debate but users do get some benefit from buying through the App Store. (Security, convenience, etc.) You get nothing extra from buying HP first party ink otherwise they wouldn’t do this.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    Same argument: "You get nothing extra from buying AppStore apps otherwise they wouldn’t do this."
- golem14 3y ago
  People are less upset because Apple does not brick the phone when the user downloads an app they don't like. (they might in the future, but not today).
  - cubefox 3y ago
    HP doesn't brick the printers either, it just doesn't print with third party cartridges.
    - golem14 3y ago
      That's a fair-ish point, but in practical terms, the printer is bricked until I pay up, whereas the phone is basically working with all free apps and web apps, which for many people is good enough. So it's a significant difference.
- lostlogin 3y ago
mcny 3y ago
The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this because it just becomes the cost of doing business. No, you can’t say it wasn’t your decision. If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express written orders.
- VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
  Prison time? For bricking an $80 printer unless you use specific parts? I don't think so. Let's try to stay on planet earth here..
  - jxf 3y ago
    Not saying they should go to jail, but OP is saying they're bricking potentially millions of printers, not one $80 printer.
  - rvense 3y ago
    I'm quite sure you can go to prison for stealing a printer. Why not for breaking one?
    - bluGill 3y ago
      That is vandalism.
    - eric-hu 3y ago
      The cynical answer might be that HP secretly updated their TOS so that the printer transaction is not a purchase but a long term rental on their terms. Not unlike “buying” a game on Steam or “buying” a Tesla. In both cases, you do something the vendor dislikes and your ownership is toast.
  - clipsy 3y ago
    You deliberately misrepresent this as one $80 printer; in reality it is the sum total of all printers bricked by this, plus price gouging the printer owners who don’t want their printer bricked. If even a few dozen printers were bricked by this it would represent more lost value than the threshold for grand larceny in many jurisdictions; do you propose we let people who steal, say, $1600 of goods walk away scot free? And don’t waste your breath on fines —- those will only be passed on to the captive consumers as the “cost of business.”
VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
The Paperless Revolution will hopefully one day bankrupt Hewlett Packard.
kayson 3y ago
It seems like there is enough competition in the printer market that this wouldn't be a thing. Are the margins so thin that all manufacturers depend on ink sales? Otherwise I don't understand why one wouldn't make universal ink compatibility a major selling point and force everyone to follow suit.
- wongarsu 3y ago
  They sell printers at a loss and make the money back on ink sales. You can get printers with refillable ink tanks from all (three) major manufacturers, but they cost significantly more because they aren't subsidized by ink sales
  - janoc 3y ago
    And you have to search for them online or order from various strange places because no major stores where people actually go buy "computer stuff" carry them. Coincidence? I think not. Worse, even the lot more expensive "office" printers (both laser and inkjets) have been sabotaged by such "driver update for your own good" shenanigans in the past. This isn't limited only to the cheapest disposable inkjet junkers.
- clipsy 3y ago
  The margins on home inkjet printer sales are not just low, they are typically negative. Which, coupled with incurious/cheap customers makes it very hard for an honest printer manufacturer to compete.
- throwaway81523 3y ago
  > competition Oh you sweet summer child. Relevant cartoon, ignoring caption: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_U-39iprM4Cs/SfZWFzmSQ-I/AAAAAAAAAJI/qWjGVM4M_d0/s1600-h/when.png https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_U-39iprM4Cs/SfZWFzmSQ-I/AAAAAAAAA... They ALL do it.
rvense 3y ago
Imagine if IKEA sent someone to your house to smash your plates if you used cutlery they didn't like. The CEO and board who are supervising this ought to be barred from ever running a company again.
- avewa 3y ago
  A more apt analogy would be that you entered a contract in which IKEA rented you a house at a great discount and in exchange you can only furnish the house with IKEA furniture and then they caught you buying stuff somewhere else and kicked you out. The "smash your plates" part is not adequate because the 3rd party ink cartridges are not being destroyed. If you promise to keep buying IKEA furniture they'll let you return to the house. If you don't like the terms of this contract (I don't) then don't sign it. Easy!
  - serf 3y ago
    >If you don't like the terms of this contract (I don't) then don't sign it. Easy! it is disingenuous to frame a consumer purchase as the entry into a contract, even if that is the case much of the time. but I do agree with the idea of boycott through avoidance.
  - alanbernstein 3y ago
    The problem is that none of this is obvious to an unaware consumer who thinks they're just buying a printer. The marketing practices surrounding this are deliberate and have a side effect of producing a huge amount of preventable waste.
  - rvense 3y ago
    That's not a more apt analogy at all, that's the stupid explanation they might give to tell themselves they're not being bastards, which they objectively are. It's not about laws or contracts, why are you twisting yourself to defend this? People bought a printer to print, they were able to print, now they're not due to HP's vandalism. It's so obviously not OK. If HP can't make a printer to sell for $80 then should just not sell printers for $80.
  - 3y ago
millzlane 3y ago
I like brother printers.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  Is it possible to like a printer? Frustration, irritation and anger would summarise my feelings about them.
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    I liked my 1993-model LaserJet 4 until I realized what it was doing to my electric bill. I'd probably still be using it otherwise. Built to survive nuclear Armageddon. The only tougher printer was the LaserJet 3 it replaced, which was built to survive an asteroid strike.
wrd83 3y ago
Honestly this is a waste of money, resources and time. The EU had forced other things nicely like walled gardens. I would love to see a law for inter operability for third parties.
wkat4242 3y ago
I thought all brands used this eco system now with little tanks you can just pour ink in? That's all I see in the shops now. But I just have an old b/w laser
- someweirdperson 3y ago
  I thought it was only epson. But it seems that cannon and hp offer bottle-fed printers, too.
- tbirdny 3y ago
  I have a Canon MegaTank printer G6020. It comes with more ink than I can print in a lifetime. I've had it for two years and the ink is maybe down 1%. The only problem is I only print a couple pages every few weeks and so I guess the ink dries out and then the head gets clogged, I assume. Cleaning the heads can sometimes help, but it doesn't always work, and only works once or twice and then it's clogged forever. It happened to my printer and a relative's. We are each missing one color. One of us is missing cyan and the other yellow, I think. We can still print in black and white though since the black color is still working. If it wasn't for that major flaw, they would be great printers. The quality and features are very good. The price was great considering how long the ink should last. Also, when you clean the heads it ends up dumping the ink in a foam pad in the back of the printer, and that fills up and turns into a mess. I haven't looked at my pad, but that's what I saw on some YouTube videos.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Yup that's why I bought a laser. They don't dry out (though in exceptionally high humidity the opposite can happen where the toner starts clumping up). But generally for a one page a month scenario laser really kills inkjets for that reason. Really nice for boarding passes too as the ink doesn't run when it gets wet. I know, electronic but stuff like that I prefer to have a hardcopy of. But really if you print photo quality stuff weekly inkjet is unbeatable especially with these new tanks. I've not seen a color laser that prints acceptable photos.
CoastalCoder 3y ago
I'm curious if this significantly hinges on the validity of EULAs, especially ones with onerous terms.
DiabloD3 3y ago
Did you know Brother makes really good printers that are inexpensive and live a long, happy, life? And their drivers aren't user hostile? This is one of those really good "vote with your wallets" situations.
- alanbernstein 3y ago
  I know that. There are no signs at best buy that tell people that BEFORE they unknowingly buy these garbage products.
- macintux 3y ago
  During previous discussions about this there have been some comments indicating Brother is headed down this road as well. No idea how accurate that is.
  - jwilk 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131
- wongarsu 3y ago
  Or buy a laser printer. They cost a bit more upfront, but a single toner cartridge lasts ages (and won't dry out or get used up in cleaning cycles), the printers are generally much more robust and longer lasting, and because laser printing isn't as patent-encumbered there's more actual competition and less outright user-hostile behavior.
  - sgc 3y ago
    I use a Brother laser with non-oem cartridge. That is what Brother is known for.
    - ryao 3y ago
      They started cracking down on that a year or two ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mfc_firmware_update_nongenuine_toner_now/ https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mf...
rwaksmunski 3y ago
Pre-chip Brother laser printers can be found for $50-100 on Craigslist. Will last for a decade of home use if not more. Toner can be refilled or bought aftermarket for under $20.
- daniel-thompson 3y ago
  > Pre-chip What's the story with the chip?
  - jwilk 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 presumably.
206lol 3y ago
[dead]
pknopf 3y ago
I'll never forget how confused I was when my HP printer kept printing ads, randomly. Turns out, it was an official practice by HP. I'll never use any of their products again.
- trampi 3y ago
  That sounds like pure horror to me. I haven't heard of this before. Can you provide a source to back this claim?
  - fwlr 3y ago
    I hadn’t heard of this before either. A quick search (miraculously, Google still sometimes works for me) indicates two separate phenomena: one is that HP did intend to insert printed ads when you use some of their automated print options (https://www.computerworld.com/article/2519039/hp-partners-with-yahoo-for-targeted-ads.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2519039/hp-partners-wi...), and the other is that some HP printers are “web-enabled” in the sense that emails to a certain printer email address will automatically be printed, and the default access settings allow spam ads which then get automatically printed (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Mobile-Printing-Cloud-Printing/Why-does-my-printer-print-a-bunch-of-advertisements-that-I/td-p/7289339 https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Mobile-Printing-Cloud-Printing...)
crazygringo 3y ago
I just want to be clear, because this headline is borderline clickbait. HP is not bricking the printers. The printers will continue to work if you put the HP cartridges back in. I'm not condoning HP at all, not in a million years. But the verb "disable" carries connotations of permanence, so it seems like a disingenuous word choice at best, if it's not outright clickbait. Just so people aren't confused here.
- einpoklum 3y ago
  > HP is not bricking the printers. The printers will continue to work if you put the HP cartridges back in. That's semi-bricking the printers. > I'm not condoning HP at all, not in a million years. You're semi-condoning them.
  - FPGAhacker 3y ago
    Semi-bricking is like saying someone is semi-pregnant.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > That's semi-bricking the printers. I suppose you could say that, but it would mean something quite different from what bricking normally does. And I wouldn't advise it because it sounds like a soft brick rather than "beep boop replace cartridge". > You're semi-condoning them. No they're not.
  - Kiro 3y ago
    > You're semi-condoning them. It's this mentality that makes internet discussions so polarized. If you allow the slightest nuance or point out that something is factually incorrect, and it happens to go against the prevailing narrative, you're accused of being a shill.
    - quitit 3y ago
      These people can’t separate an idea from a side. They’re incapable of holding useful debate because all thoughts must be categorised as “us” or “the enemy”. It provides no route for correcting ourselves and no tolerance for enhancing our arguments.
jmyeet 3y ago
This is a lesson in combining poor user behaviour with warped incentives. Low-end cartridge printers are often sold at cost or a loss. Why? Because they make the money back on cartridges. That's why you see silly things like this because third-party ink and cartridges destroys that business model. But that business model only exists because users make decisions based on sticker price for the printer. Running costs rarely enter the picture. I saw once a camera store owner said he might sometimes make $1 selling a DSLR and then $10 on a $17 UV filter to go with it. Fast food burger places suffer from this too. McDonalds sells burgers at cost pretty much. They make all their money on the drinks and fries. The so-called "value" in meal deals is pretty much pure profit. If you print any kind of volume, never ever buy a cartridge inkjet printer. Buy a tank printer instead. As an aside, this issue isn't as simple as people make it out to be. The issue comes up with (for example) iPhone accessories. You can't justify Apple's prices but it's also not true that all third-party products are produced equal. Anker, in general, makes excellent products but some third-party chargers have killed people [1]. I'm sure most third-party cartridges are fine but that's not necessarily true either. Third-party manufacturers are incentivized to make things as cheap as possible. Will that ink print as well? Will it degrade printer performance over time? Who knows? It's another thing you have to worry about and that's also why these companies don't like third-party products because if poor ink clogs up a printer, who is going to get blamed? Obviously though it's mostly the greed thing though. [1]: https://www.macgasm.net/news/miscellaneous-news/another-man-electrocuted-killed-using-third-party-apple-charger/ https://www.macgasm.net/news/miscellaneous-news/another-man-...
ravenstine 3y ago
Is there anything HP has made in the last 20 years that was actually good? It seems like their MO in recent history is to make flimsy, garbage products, heavily market them, and build in restrictions to force you to buy more of their crap. They're worse than Canon, since at least Canon still makes fairly decent cameras.
anonymousiam 3y ago
HP's actions here remind me of what Sony did in 2010. Sony was sued and eventually had to pay. Revising/restricting the features of a product after it is sold can have legal consequences. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/sony-settles-linux-battle https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/sony-settles-linux-batt... https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/3/20984028/playstation-supercomputer-ps3-umass-dartmouth-astrophysics-25th-anniversary https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/3/20984028/playstation-supe...
puma_ambit 3y ago
Yeah, they’re on my list of brands to not buy any more.
einpoklum 3y ago
Tomorrow's story should be: Customers "disable" their purchasing of HP printers in favor of cheaper, but not as cheap, rivals.
- _piif 3y ago
  I wish. I will certainly do my part the next time I consider buying a printer but it's been shown again and again that the vast majority of people will always put comfort (and productivity) over ideology. I don't expect any meaningful loss of sales on their part from this.
- ryao 3y ago
  I decided to stop buying ink cartridges and switched to a monochrome laser printer years ago, but kept the old inkjet printer because it could do scans. I recently had to do a color print. Instead of buying new ink cartridges for my old HP printer, I purchased a new printer from Canon from walmart. Then I gave it away to someone who would use it. More recently, I decided to buy a color laser printer that can do copying so I do not need the HP anymore and will have the option of doing color prints immediately no matter how many years pass. I brought a Canon. Unlike HP printers, it lets you opt into mechanisms that disable third party toner. I just did some of the first prints with it and it is really nice.
specialist 3y ago
Yes and: Authentic HP ink cartridges now have an expiration date. Even when new in package, sealed, and totally fine. A friend asked me to fix their printer. Error code was nonsensical. Eventually determined an automatic firmware update invalidated their cartridges. Only clue came from other complaints on reddit. HP had no useful info or troubleshooting advice. Convinced friend to buy a Brother laser printer. HP is now evil. Got the Jack Welch treatment. I blame Fiorina, Hurd, Whitman, the board, and all the other stooges, for turning a former tech gem into a punch line.
- jasomill 3y ago
  Even worse, authorized HP retailers sell nearly expired cartridges. Happened to my mother who bought an HP-branded cartridge from ("shipped and sold by") Amazon, then got a warning message when she installed it a couple months later — it had "expired" a month after purchase. Fortunately, on her particular printer at least, there was an option to ignore the warning, and the cartridge worked fine after that.
adityamwagh 3y ago
How about this - a company that makes printers, but has open sourced their design for cartridges so that other people can make and sell cartridges for those printers? Does something like this exist? Or did HP try their best and bury such companies?
synergy20 3y ago
It's like Toyota will disable my car if I did not go to its dealers to do oil changes or regular maintenance. Make your ink cartridge super high quality with reasonable price, I will buy it. Selling a printer at dirty cheap price and expect to recoup the discount via over priced ink cartridges? your sales and marketing department are doing it wrong, and it's not my problem at all. Besides, who needs printers these days anymore?
- Ryccardo 3y ago
  You might be interested to know that Volkswagen's newest CNG cars do exactly that - there's a multi-year countdown configured at the factory, and when it runs down you can't use that fuel anymore, just the gasoline fallback! That's particularly "fun" here in Italy, where (unlike in the rest of Europe), metal cylinders currently need to be removed from the car and sent to one of two national inspection centers for high pressure testing - which requires them to be empty, of course! And unlike the oil change reminder, you can't reset it with just a button press, you need a computer interface (for which there's a fair amount of competition, but the cheapest for personal use seems to start at 60 € before shipping and is a "cloud" service)
snvzz 3y ago
Where are the Open Source Hardware printers? Literally everybody (except printer makers) hates the printer landscape. All we'd need is to pool money to design a cost-effective open source hardware modular monochrome laser printer with open firmware.
- bequanna 3y ago
  Or buy a Brother printer. They aren’t without sin, but they make quality printers and don’t pull crap like this.
- throwaway81523 3y ago
  Monochrome lasers aren't a big problem if you shop properly. You can do fine with a 1990s era laserjet. The bigger headache is color inkjets, and the ink they consume.
  - local_crmdgeon 3y ago
    A home color inkjet won't do justice basically any photo, to be fair. You'll have a better time buying a B&W document printer then going to your local photo printing shop for high quality work. Plus, you'll probably meet cool people.
    - themodelplumber 3y ago
      Really? That'd be quite a regression. I had a mid-range home color inkjet in the year 2000 that made color prints which were easily as good as local photo printers. You had to enable higher quality prints, and use the special photo paper, of which they provided samples with the printer. Oh and you had to wait about 5 minutes for a full page print, maybe 10. But people would say "this came from your HOME printer?" And there's all these little HP logos on the back of the photo, like a real print shop. I was so impressed by the quality that I printed my first resume on photo paper, and was slightly confused when people were less than blown away by the appearance :-)
    - throwaway81523 3y ago
liendolucas 3y ago
Doesn't this classify as spyware/malware? Who would think a company would go that far to lock-in customers in such a miserable way? I'm being naive but let's hope others do not get creative and follow these outrageous practices.
PopePompus 3y ago
Has there ever been another company that declined as much from its glory days as HP? During the second half of the 20th century HP was a fabled brand. They made beautiful equipment for which there was often no comparable quality alternative in the world. The pocket calculators they built in the 1980s are still sought-after, not just as collectables but also as daily drivers. They built computers during that era, but they we never a "player" in that industry. Then they shifted their focus to computers and began their long decent into the crappy husk of a company that they are today. The engineers who work there should be ashamed when they implement malware like this printer ink scam.
- pulvinar 3y ago
  Plenty of other companies have declined, or just changed as the people composing them changed. But for HP, yeah, I miss their heyday too. I consider their spinoff Agilent to be the "real" HP now.
- scarface74 3y ago
  > They built computers during that era, but they we never a "player" in that industry. HP was definitely a player in the PC industry and has been the number one manufacturer at different times.. https://statisticsanddata.org/data/best-selling-computer-brands/ https://statisticsanddata.org/data/best-selling-computer-bra...
  - PopePompus 3y ago
    Yes, but I would claim that was when they started going to pot. LONG before the PC era, HP made its own line of computers, which were seldom seen outside of labs, and even labs were much more apt to have a PDP-8 or PDP-11. Their move into commodity computers and peripherals moved them from a situation where they were building the highest quality products available, into one where they had no "moat". After all, who would buy a spectacularly well built PC early in the PC era? After two years you would have wanted to throw it out regardless of how solidly it was built, because back then PCs doubled in performance nearly every year.
crest 3y ago
Sometimes you have to lead them by the neck. Wipe out the company and lock up those responsible for a few decades of real labor.
jimbobimbo 3y ago
I'm glad they are still asking for permission to upgrade the firmware. I was successful at declining that for a year or so already.
bediger4000 3y ago
Kyocera seems to make decent laser jets. I bought a kyocera P2235dw a while back, and it was easy to get CUPS on linux and MacOS to recognize it and use it. Kyocera makes a PPD file for linux available. My P2235dw is a bit noisier than some, but it's not bad.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
neuralRiot 3y ago
This is from 2020 https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-printer-firmware-update-blocked-use-of-third-party-ink-toner-cartridges https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-prin...
newmanah223 3y ago
You could just not buy an HP printer. I use older Brother laserjet printers that I bought secondhand. A pack of 2 off-brand toner cartridges are about $20 on ebay. Enough people are dumb enough to overpay for ink that HP stays in business. Jailing a CEO won't cure stupidity.
- RealityVoid 3y ago
  Louis Rossman had a video about exactly this kind of attitude, and he persuaded me that it's not a good one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN44n_F_CPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN44n_F_CPo Please do watch it. His point is that this kind of horrible kind of practices corrupt and spread through industries so they need to be dealt with ASAP if you want to prevent it becoming standard. Besides, you can't be savvy about all fields. Sure, you know about printers, but how many other facets of life you're NOT familiar with and you're duped in making choices that disadvantages you.
  - ryao 3y ago
    Louis Rossman has a business interest to say that. Interestingly, if you try asking him to fix a Dell laptop that was a gift from a deceased relative, he will refuse, no matter how much you are willing to pay. I know this from experience.
    - RealityVoid 3y ago
      Maybe. But that does not invalidate what he's saying here. Sure, scrutinize it, counter it. But I find what he said to make sense.
marcodiego 3y ago
FTDI/Microsoft did something similar to counter "counterfeit" FTDI chips[1]. I remember at least one person who bricked and arduino because of it. I instructed everyone I knew who used no-brand arduinos give them away for their colleagues who use linux. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/windows-update-drivers-bricking-usb-serial-chips-beloved-of-hardware-hackers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/windo...
psyfi 3y ago
Boycott HP
g42gregory 3y ago
Good to know. No HP for me, when I will buy a replacement printer.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
29athrowaway 3y ago
Because printers are sold at a loss.
fwlr 3y ago
Jailbreaking and hardware-hacking printers is starting to sound like it could be a whole lot of fun, actually
chrisweekly 3y ago
I got tired of the user-hostile shenanigans, bad software, low-quality output, and high TCO (5 or 6 HP or Canon devices over the years), finally came to my senses and bought a Brother. It "Just Works", is fast and quiet and reliable, does exactly what it's supposed to, and is in such stark contrast to the typically terrible printer UX it's almost funny.
ryao 3y ago
Could someone get the EU to mandate a standard interchangeable ink cartridge format to make this nonsense go away? It would be fascinating to watch how HP responds.
throw7 3y ago
"Using a non AT&T phone is not allowed in order to maintain the integrity of our phone system and to protect our intellectual property." I was looking at printers a year or two ago and noticed that HP's were cheaper, but it was clear from the packaging they were selling "internet" connected printers & ink subscriptions. Those were immediate red flags to me.
aio2 3y ago
well, this is direction the world is heading in
mkl95 3y ago
My HP printer was about as expensive as a couple of cartridges. They are the McDonalds of printers.
ajsnigrutin 3y ago
Can't you just return it? It worked until the upgrade, then it didn't, the update took away a functionality you bought it for, so you can either request a downgrade to a working firmware or a refund? It would be an interesting case for courts indeed and solve a lot of future problems for consumers.
dspillett 3y ago
> to reduce the risk of malware attacks What business does an ink cartridge have containing any significant code that could act as malware? What sort of imbecilic or evil (or both) personage designs a system that makes this even remotely possible and then sells it to the general public? Of course there is no answer to that because it isn't a real reason, it is crap regurgitated by a PR drone who knows next to nothing about tech details and has been told to drop the phrase in to make it look like the company is defending their customers from something rather than being a something their customers need defending from… (or worse, the PR person knows a bit about tech, so knows the malware angle is complete bunkum, and was actively lying.)
koiz 3y ago
great job hp, keep annoying customers that will work!
human 3y ago
I know this has been asked a million times but when are we going to get a great printer company? Right now we have to settle for the least bad manufacturer.
emodendroket 3y ago
My guess is they're trying to squeeze more revenue because fewer people are buying and regularly using printers.
nkrisc 3y ago
I really do think there needs to be stricter regulations about how products like these can be advertised. Do you really "own" the printer if the manufacturer can decide what ink you're allowed to put in it after you've already paid for it? It really seems disingenuous to market these prints as "purchases" or something that you "buy" like you would a loaf of bread. It's not quite "renting", but it's not really "owning" either because when you "buy" it, it's not just yours, but you actually share some degree of ownership of it with the manufacturer.
masswerk 3y ago
> the company also blocks the use of rival cartridges in order to “maintain the integrity of our printing systems, and protect our intellectual property”. One might have thought that the basic IP on ink expired somewhen in the 12th century.
sn_master 3y ago
Why is there CODE running inside of an ink cartridge in the first place?!?! Let alone code that's sophisticated enough that "cheaper rivals" can't just copy it. What is going on in this world?
j45 3y ago
Seems like there’s one reason to disable HP from one’s life - you never really own what hardware you buy from them. If inkjet printer “technology” hasn’t evolved in 25 years enough to not have to worry as much about third party ink, they probably aren’t competent at printers. Or perhaps the corollary that inkjet ink is among the, if not most expensive retail substance per ml/oz.
yieldcrv 3y ago
This is an antitrust violation right? An anticompetitive practice
cgtyoder 3y ago
How is this news? HP has been doing this for a long time.
dramm 3y ago
I stopped buying HP anything. And startups and others I work with I encourage to purchase Brother laser printers. HP is dead to me. Not only this crap, but Brother makes more reliable and better priced/cost of ownership printers.
anbeliever 3y ago
My suggestion is to announce a hackathon with sweat amount and brainstorm ideas on how to make money with the current state. Disabling printers is not a smart move, this will force people to look for workarounds.
ksec 3y ago
I wonder if there is anything we can further innovate on? Something that is as good as Colour Laser but much cheaper.
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  Just don't print stuff. I hardly ever use my printer. I say this as someone who has spent most of my career working on printing related software.
  - ksec 3y ago
    I cant. Kid's education and Work related things still requires printing. And actually I have grown much more fond of printing things out in paper rather than keeping it digital as I age. I still print about 10-20 page a month.
anshumankmr 3y ago
Serious question, would re-filling an original HP cartridge do the trick? I am considering buying a printer myself and the two most popular ones seem to be Brother and HP. I have however read Brother is doing similar tactics.
alfanick 3y ago
Do you actually own a printer? Since 10+ years I print stuff either at work or in hotel. If it's pictures, I print them in some printing company with some nice ICC profile I got from them. Owning a printer in XXI century is waste of time.
MetaApe 3y ago
Cost of a new printer $100, cost of 2 HP cartridges… $85 So it’s easy, just buy a new printer one from a non-criminal company.
pauby 3y ago
If people stop buying these printers, then you're voting with your wallet. But people won't. They continue to buy these printers and HP will continue to do this as their sales are telling them it's good. I accept there is more to this than that, but it's the first step.
fmajid 3y ago
I believe this is explicitly illegal in France under the country’s environment and e-waste law. Apple got in trouble because batterygate was interpreted as planned obsolescence, which is forbidden.
costanzaDynasty 3y ago
On one hand you want consumers and a jury to believe that you have no liability when bad actors use your bad drivers to run malicious code on their machines while at the same time doing basically the same thing to your own customers.
rcarmo 3y ago
This is one of the reasons I’ve been meaning to switch to a Brother printer for a while - just waiting for my current HP all-in-one to die (I need a scanner, and until a few years ago also needed a fax). Fortunately we don’t print that much stuff anymore, even with kids’ assignments.

662 points by jeremylevy 3y ago

Do people still buy HP inkjets? They've been doing this kind of thing for a decade, I'd have thought they should have seen their customerbase wither away by now.

whoopdedo 3y ago
Name recognition is a hell of a drug.

classified 3y ago

What they've managed to achieve with this is that I'll never buy an HP printer ever again.

arlattimore 3y ago

If you're going to use corporate fines, they'll need to be per instance and massive or large corporations like HP will just pay the fine and keep doing it.

FaridIO 3y ago

I think Hacker News has enough tech-savvy people who are asked for advice by friends and family to make a dent. Let's make companies regret decisions like this.

UberFly 3y ago

Geeze, what if you accidentally buy a counterfeit ink item off eBay or something?

timbit42 3y ago
Buy another one. The printer will still work if you put in a real HP one.

WalterBright 3y ago

Selling something, and then remotely disabling it without the purchaser's knowledge or consent, sounds like vandalism to me.

emodendroket 3y ago
I would imagine their claim (probably written somewhere when you bought it) is that they do not guarantee it will work with any third-party components.
perihelions 3y ago
Sounds like a CFAA felony (unauthorized access) and I couldn't cogently be able to explain why it's not. (Because of a hidden clause in the ToS? Can you hide "we'll install ransomware on your PC" in a software ToS and enforce that, too? What's the very fine distinction between "we'll remotely disable your printer until you pay for exclusive, cryptographically-signed ink", and "we'll remotely encrypt your files and demand payments for the key?") (It's not a particularly new idea, to extort someone under the pretense of selling them a useful service (exclusive ink). That's just "protection racket" — I think?)
- carlmr 3y ago
  At least in German law anything "surprising" in the ToS can't be enforced. This would definitely be surprising to most. So it couldn't legally be done with ToS.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  For me, when you "purchase" something, it's yours and you can do whatever the hell you want with it. If a "purchase" comes with "terms of use", it should not be classified as a purchase. It should be clearly labeled as "rent".

camhenlin 3y ago

Happens with their toner cartridges on laser printers too. I bought an HP laser, used some toner carts off Amazon, then got a software update and it wouldn’t recognize the toner carts. Had to replace them with HP cartridges from Staples at much higher cost to get back up and running, which I guess was their goal. Wouldn’t buy another one.

lb1lf 3y ago
Surely there must be a law against this? You buy a product capable of using any toner, then the manufacturer disables this feature without your consent to push their own margins up?
denton-scratch 3y ago
I'm not sure why a printer should need a firmware update. Even an MFP. Either it does what it's supposed to do when you buy it, or it's not fit for sale, and you return it. It should then just go on doing it's thing until it dies of old age, no?

nubinetwork 3y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090388

onepointsixC 3y ago

This doesn't sound legal, and if it is it shouldn't be.

gabereiser 3y ago
It’s not, they were sued for this practice a few years ago. They continue to do it.
- auggierose 3y ago
  Did they lose the lawsuit?
  - gabereiser 3y ago
    https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/11/23635168/hp-printer-update-brick-third-party-ink-dynamic-security https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/11/23635168/hp-printer-updat... https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-printer-firmware-update-blocked-use-of-third-party-ink-toner-cartridges https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-prin...
- eestrada 3y ago
  So long as the cost (fines, legal fees, lost revenue due to bad press) is less than the increase in revenue they receive from forcing users to buy their overprices cartridges, HP's behavior won't change. My most recent printer is an HP I bought at Costco because I knew it worked with CUPS and HPLIP on Linux and macOS. Given how many times I've seen HP pull this stunt though, I'll most likely shop for a different brand next time. Part of this is also that HP has captured a LOT of corporate printing locations. The cost of migration for those businesses, universities and organizations is huge. I think that is why they keep getting away with this. Even if individual consumers move away from HP, they still own a huge chunk of the corporate printing market.

seized 3y ago

Time to get a Brother.

nubinetwork 3y ago
Apparently they aren't all that great either... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131
- ehPReth 3y ago
  Can confirm they've started chipping toner carts now :/. I have two Brother printers, one that takes TN-450s (no chip, can be reset via button sequence) and one that takes TN-760s (chip, no button sequence reset to say the cartridge is full). Both can be set to 'continue printing' when the cartridge is 'empty', though*. * Sometimes it "forgets" this setting, unsure the conditions to trigger that, but I imagine the retention sloppiness of this setting versus all the other ones it remembers (admin password, etc) is not an accident.
- rahimnathwani 3y ago
  Anecdata about the same model: I have had a Brother MFC-L3750CDW for 3.5 years, and have printed over 5000 pages. Even though I always use third party toners, I haven't seen that color registration issue. Just now, I just went to the printer and let it do the 'calibration' and 'registration' steps. Then I printed a test image from the internet. None of the colours are offset.
xanathar 3y ago
Ask your parents, but be ware that it will take a few years for that to pay off. Oh wait, you meant...

bastard_op 3y ago

As the article states, HP has even been sued for this, yet continues to do it as it's a core part of their profits to keep people buying THEIR ink. Profit alone for the printer itself isn't worth it, they'd otherwise they'd not even bother making printers anymore, but that reoccurring revenue from ink is some sweet sweet cash. It's like google/fakebook/twits whining about people blocking ads or using encryption they can't harvest data from as their source of revenue. Worlds smallest violin.

TobTobXX 3y ago
Worlds smallest violin?
- atom058 3y ago
  > Worlds smallest violin? It's a turn of phrase, where you are mocking someone by accompanying their expressed sadness (or whining) by "playing the world's smallest violin", e.g. by rubbing your fingers together
- zczc 3y ago
  https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/

cubefox 3y ago

This issue is discussed for over 20 years now, it baffles me that there is apparently still no established solution. By the way, Apple forcing users to install apps only via its 30% fee AppStore has provoked far less outrage. Probably because people are not directly aware of the Apple premium, in contrast to the HP premium.

cyberlurker 3y ago
Whether you think it is a good value is up for debate but users do get some benefit from buying through the App Store. (Security, convenience, etc.) You get nothing extra from buying HP first party ink otherwise they wouldn’t do this.
- cubefox 3y ago
  Same argument: "You get nothing extra from buying AppStore apps otherwise they wouldn’t do this."
golem14 3y ago
People are less upset because Apple does not brick the phone when the user downloads an app they don't like. (they might in the future, but not today).
- cubefox 3y ago
  HP doesn't brick the printers either, it just doesn't print with third party cartridges.
  - golem14 3y ago
    That's a fair-ish point, but in practical terms, the printer is bricked until I pay up, whereas the phone is basically working with all free apps and web apps, which for many people is good enough. So it's a significant difference.
lostlogin 3y ago

mcny 3y ago

The CEO and the board must serve prison time for things like this. No measure less than prison for the CEO and all board members is enough to curtail this because it just becomes the cost of doing business. No, you can’t say it wasn’t your decision. If you want to not be held accountable for the work your employees, contractors, and agents do on your behalf, you should have to prove they acted against your express written orders.

VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
Prison time? For bricking an $80 printer unless you use specific parts? I don't think so. Let's try to stay on planet earth here..
- jxf 3y ago
  Not saying they should go to jail, but OP is saying they're bricking potentially millions of printers, not one $80 printer.
- rvense 3y ago
  I'm quite sure you can go to prison for stealing a printer. Why not for breaking one?
  - bluGill 3y ago
    That is vandalism.
  - eric-hu 3y ago
    The cynical answer might be that HP secretly updated their TOS so that the printer transaction is not a purchase but a long term rental on their terms. Not unlike “buying” a game on Steam or “buying” a Tesla. In both cases, you do something the vendor dislikes and your ownership is toast.
- clipsy 3y ago
  You deliberately misrepresent this as one $80 printer; in reality it is the sum total of all printers bricked by this, plus price gouging the printer owners who don’t want their printer bricked. If even a few dozen printers were bricked by this it would represent more lost value than the threshold for grand larceny in many jurisdictions; do you propose we let people who steal, say, $1600 of goods walk away scot free? And don’t waste your breath on fines —- those will only be passed on to the captive consumers as the “cost of business.”

VWWHFSfQ 3y ago

The Paperless Revolution will hopefully one day bankrupt Hewlett Packard.

kayson 3y ago

It seems like there is enough competition in the printer market that this wouldn't be a thing. Are the margins so thin that all manufacturers depend on ink sales? Otherwise I don't understand why one wouldn't make universal ink compatibility a major selling point and force everyone to follow suit.

wongarsu 3y ago
They sell printers at a loss and make the money back on ink sales. You can get printers with refillable ink tanks from all (three) major manufacturers, but they cost significantly more because they aren't subsidized by ink sales
- janoc 3y ago
  And you have to search for them online or order from various strange places because no major stores where people actually go buy "computer stuff" carry them. Coincidence? I think not. Worse, even the lot more expensive "office" printers (both laser and inkjets) have been sabotaged by such "driver update for your own good" shenanigans in the past. This isn't limited only to the cheapest disposable inkjet junkers.
clipsy 3y ago
The margins on home inkjet printer sales are not just low, they are typically negative. Which, coupled with incurious/cheap customers makes it very hard for an honest printer manufacturer to compete.
throwaway81523 3y ago
> competition Oh you sweet summer child. Relevant cartoon, ignoring caption: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_U-39iprM4Cs/SfZWFzmSQ-I/AAAAAAAAAJI/qWjGVM4M_d0/s1600-h/when.png https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_U-39iprM4Cs/SfZWFzmSQ-I/AAAAAAAAA... They ALL do it.

rvense 3y ago

Imagine if IKEA sent someone to your house to smash your plates if you used cutlery they didn't like. The CEO and board who are supervising this ought to be barred from ever running a company again.

avewa 3y ago
A more apt analogy would be that you entered a contract in which IKEA rented you a house at a great discount and in exchange you can only furnish the house with IKEA furniture and then they caught you buying stuff somewhere else and kicked you out. The "smash your plates" part is not adequate because the 3rd party ink cartridges are not being destroyed. If you promise to keep buying IKEA furniture they'll let you return to the house. If you don't like the terms of this contract (I don't) then don't sign it. Easy!
- serf 3y ago
  >If you don't like the terms of this contract (I don't) then don't sign it. Easy! it is disingenuous to frame a consumer purchase as the entry into a contract, even if that is the case much of the time. but I do agree with the idea of boycott through avoidance.
- alanbernstein 3y ago
  The problem is that none of this is obvious to an unaware consumer who thinks they're just buying a printer. The marketing practices surrounding this are deliberate and have a side effect of producing a huge amount of preventable waste.
- rvense 3y ago
  That's not a more apt analogy at all, that's the stupid explanation they might give to tell themselves they're not being bastards, which they objectively are. It's not about laws or contracts, why are you twisting yourself to defend this? People bought a printer to print, they were able to print, now they're not due to HP's vandalism. It's so obviously not OK. If HP can't make a printer to sell for $80 then should just not sell printers for $80.
- 3y ago

millzlane 3y ago

I like brother printers.

lostlogin 3y ago
Is it possible to like a printer? Frustration, irritation and anger would summarise my feelings about them.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  I liked my 1993-model LaserJet 4 until I realized what it was doing to my electric bill. I'd probably still be using it otherwise. Built to survive nuclear Armageddon. The only tougher printer was the LaserJet 3 it replaced, which was built to survive an asteroid strike.

wrd83 3y ago

Honestly this is a waste of money, resources and time. The EU had forced other things nicely like walled gardens. I would love to see a law for inter operability for third parties.

wkat4242 3y ago

I thought all brands used this eco system now with little tanks you can just pour ink in? That's all I see in the shops now. But I just have an old b/w laser

someweirdperson 3y ago
I thought it was only epson. But it seems that cannon and hp offer bottle-fed printers, too.
tbirdny 3y ago
I have a Canon MegaTank printer G6020. It comes with more ink than I can print in a lifetime. I've had it for two years and the ink is maybe down 1%. The only problem is I only print a couple pages every few weeks and so I guess the ink dries out and then the head gets clogged, I assume. Cleaning the heads can sometimes help, but it doesn't always work, and only works once or twice and then it's clogged forever. It happened to my printer and a relative's. We are each missing one color. One of us is missing cyan and the other yellow, I think. We can still print in black and white though since the black color is still working. If it wasn't for that major flaw, they would be great printers. The quality and features are very good. The price was great considering how long the ink should last. Also, when you clean the heads it ends up dumping the ink in a foam pad in the back of the printer, and that fills up and turns into a mess. I haven't looked at my pad, but that's what I saw on some YouTube videos.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Yup that's why I bought a laser. They don't dry out (though in exceptionally high humidity the opposite can happen where the toner starts clumping up). But generally for a one page a month scenario laser really kills inkjets for that reason. Really nice for boarding passes too as the ink doesn't run when it gets wet. I know, electronic but stuff like that I prefer to have a hardcopy of. But really if you print photo quality stuff weekly inkjet is unbeatable especially with these new tanks. I've not seen a color laser that prints acceptable photos.

CoastalCoder 3y ago

I'm curious if this significantly hinges on the validity of EULAs, especially ones with onerous terms.

DiabloD3 3y ago

Did you know Brother makes really good printers that are inexpensive and live a long, happy, life? And their drivers aren't user hostile? This is one of those really good "vote with your wallets" situations.

alanbernstein 3y ago
I know that. There are no signs at best buy that tell people that BEFORE they unknowingly buy these garbage products.
macintux 3y ago
During previous discussions about this there have been some comments indicating Brother is headed down this road as well. No idea how accurate that is.
- jwilk 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131
wongarsu 3y ago
Or buy a laser printer. They cost a bit more upfront, but a single toner cartridge lasts ages (and won't dry out or get used up in cleaning cycles), the printers are generally much more robust and longer lasting, and because laser printing isn't as patent-encumbered there's more actual competition and less outright user-hostile behavior.
- sgc 3y ago
  I use a Brother laser with non-oem cartridge. That is what Brother is known for.
  - ryao 3y ago
    They started cracking down on that a year or two ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mfc_firmware_update_nongenuine_toner_now/ https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mf...

rwaksmunski 3y ago

Pre-chip Brother laser printers can be found for $50-100 on Craigslist. Will last for a decade of home use if not more. Toner can be refilled or bought aftermarket for under $20.

daniel-thompson 3y ago
> Pre-chip What's the story with the chip?
- jwilk 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 presumably.

206lol 3y ago

[dead]

pknopf 3y ago

I'll never forget how confused I was when my HP printer kept printing ads, randomly. Turns out, it was an official practice by HP. I'll never use any of their products again.

trampi 3y ago
That sounds like pure horror to me. I haven't heard of this before. Can you provide a source to back this claim?
- fwlr 3y ago
  I hadn’t heard of this before either. A quick search (miraculously, Google still sometimes works for me) indicates two separate phenomena: one is that HP did intend to insert printed ads when you use some of their automated print options (https://www.computerworld.com/article/2519039/hp-partners-with-yahoo-for-targeted-ads.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2519039/hp-partners-wi...), and the other is that some HP printers are “web-enabled” in the sense that emails to a certain printer email address will automatically be printed, and the default access settings allow spam ads which then get automatically printed (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Mobile-Printing-Cloud-Printing/Why-does-my-printer-print-a-bunch-of-advertisements-that-I/td-p/7289339 https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Mobile-Printing-Cloud-Printing...)

crazygringo 3y ago

I just want to be clear, because this headline is borderline clickbait. HP is not bricking the printers. The printers will continue to work if you put the HP cartridges back in. I'm not condoning HP at all, not in a million years. But the verb "disable" carries connotations of permanence, so it seems like a disingenuous word choice at best, if it's not outright clickbait. Just so people aren't confused here.

einpoklum 3y ago
> HP is not bricking the printers. The printers will continue to work if you put the HP cartridges back in. That's semi-bricking the printers. > I'm not condoning HP at all, not in a million years. You're semi-condoning them.
- FPGAhacker 3y ago
  Semi-bricking is like saying someone is semi-pregnant.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > That's semi-bricking the printers. I suppose you could say that, but it would mean something quite different from what bricking normally does. And I wouldn't advise it because it sounds like a soft brick rather than "beep boop replace cartridge". > You're semi-condoning them. No they're not.
- Kiro 3y ago
  > You're semi-condoning them. It's this mentality that makes internet discussions so polarized. If you allow the slightest nuance or point out that something is factually incorrect, and it happens to go against the prevailing narrative, you're accused of being a shill.
  - quitit 3y ago
    These people can’t separate an idea from a side. They’re incapable of holding useful debate because all thoughts must be categorised as “us” or “the enemy”. It provides no route for correcting ourselves and no tolerance for enhancing our arguments.

jmyeet 3y ago

This is a lesson in combining poor user behaviour with warped incentives. Low-end cartridge printers are often sold at cost or a loss. Why? Because they make the money back on cartridges. That's why you see silly things like this because third-party ink and cartridges destroys that business model. But that business model only exists because users make decisions based on sticker price for the printer. Running costs rarely enter the picture. I saw once a camera store owner said he might sometimes make $1 selling a DSLR and then $10 on a $17 UV filter to go with it. Fast food burger places suffer from this too. McDonalds sells burgers at cost pretty much. They make all their money on the drinks and fries. The so-called "value" in meal deals is pretty much pure profit. If you print any kind of volume, never ever buy a cartridge inkjet printer. Buy a tank printer instead. As an aside, this issue isn't as simple as people make it out to be. The issue comes up with (for example) iPhone accessories. You can't justify Apple's prices but it's also not true that all third-party products are produced equal. Anker, in general, makes excellent products but some third-party chargers have killed people [1]. I'm sure most third-party cartridges are fine but that's not necessarily true either. Third-party manufacturers are incentivized to make things as cheap as possible. Will that ink print as well? Will it degrade printer performance over time? Who knows? It's another thing you have to worry about and that's also why these companies don't like third-party products because if poor ink clogs up a printer, who is going to get blamed? Obviously though it's mostly the greed thing though. [1]: https://www.macgasm.net/news/miscellaneous-news/another-man-electrocuted-killed-using-third-party-apple-charger/ https://www.macgasm.net/news/miscellaneous-news/another-man-...

ravenstine 3y ago

Is there anything HP has made in the last 20 years that was actually good? It seems like their MO in recent history is to make flimsy, garbage products, heavily market them, and build in restrictions to force you to buy more of their crap. They're worse than Canon, since at least Canon still makes fairly decent cameras.

anonymousiam 3y ago

HP's actions here remind me of what Sony did in 2010. Sony was sued and eventually had to pay. Revising/restricting the features of a product after it is sold can have legal consequences. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/sony-settles-linux-battle https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/sony-settles-linux-batt... https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/3/20984028/playstation-supercomputer-ps3-umass-dartmouth-astrophysics-25th-anniversary https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/3/20984028/playstation-supe...

puma_ambit 3y ago

Yeah, they’re on my list of brands to not buy any more.

einpoklum 3y ago

Tomorrow's story should be: Customers "disable" their purchasing of HP printers in favor of cheaper, but not as cheap, rivals.

_piif 3y ago
I wish. I will certainly do my part the next time I consider buying a printer but it's been shown again and again that the vast majority of people will always put comfort (and productivity) over ideology. I don't expect any meaningful loss of sales on their part from this.
ryao 3y ago
I decided to stop buying ink cartridges and switched to a monochrome laser printer years ago, but kept the old inkjet printer because it could do scans. I recently had to do a color print. Instead of buying new ink cartridges for my old HP printer, I purchased a new printer from Canon from walmart. Then I gave it away to someone who would use it. More recently, I decided to buy a color laser printer that can do copying so I do not need the HP anymore and will have the option of doing color prints immediately no matter how many years pass. I brought a Canon. Unlike HP printers, it lets you opt into mechanisms that disable third party toner. I just did some of the first prints with it and it is really nice.

specialist 3y ago

Yes and: Authentic HP ink cartridges now have an expiration date. Even when new in package, sealed, and totally fine. A friend asked me to fix their printer. Error code was nonsensical. Eventually determined an automatic firmware update invalidated their cartridges. Only clue came from other complaints on reddit. HP had no useful info or troubleshooting advice. Convinced friend to buy a Brother laser printer. HP is now evil. Got the Jack Welch treatment. I blame Fiorina, Hurd, Whitman, the board, and all the other stooges, for turning a former tech gem into a punch line.

jasomill 3y ago
Even worse, authorized HP retailers sell nearly expired cartridges. Happened to my mother who bought an HP-branded cartridge from ("shipped and sold by") Amazon, then got a warning message when she installed it a couple months later — it had "expired" a month after purchase. Fortunately, on her particular printer at least, there was an option to ignore the warning, and the cartridge worked fine after that.

adityamwagh 3y ago

How about this - a company that makes printers, but has open sourced their design for cartridges so that other people can make and sell cartridges for those printers? Does something like this exist? Or did HP try their best and bury such companies?

synergy20 3y ago

It's like Toyota will disable my car if I did not go to its dealers to do oil changes or regular maintenance. Make your ink cartridge super high quality with reasonable price, I will buy it. Selling a printer at dirty cheap price and expect to recoup the discount via over priced ink cartridges? your sales and marketing department are doing it wrong, and it's not my problem at all. Besides, who needs printers these days anymore?

Ryccardo 3y ago
You might be interested to know that Volkswagen's newest CNG cars do exactly that - there's a multi-year countdown configured at the factory, and when it runs down you can't use that fuel anymore, just the gasoline fallback! That's particularly "fun" here in Italy, where (unlike in the rest of Europe), metal cylinders currently need to be removed from the car and sent to one of two national inspection centers for high pressure testing - which requires them to be empty, of course! And unlike the oil change reminder, you can't reset it with just a button press, you need a computer interface (for which there's a fair amount of competition, but the cheapest for personal use seems to start at 60 € before shipping and is a "cloud" service)

snvzz 3y ago

Where are the Open Source Hardware printers? Literally everybody (except printer makers) hates the printer landscape. All we'd need is to pool money to design a cost-effective open source hardware modular monochrome laser printer with open firmware.

bequanna 3y ago
Or buy a Brother printer. They aren’t without sin, but they make quality printers and don’t pull crap like this.
throwaway81523 3y ago
Monochrome lasers aren't a big problem if you shop properly. You can do fine with a 1990s era laserjet. The bigger headache is color inkjets, and the ink they consume.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  A home color inkjet won't do justice basically any photo, to be fair. You'll have a better time buying a B&W document printer then going to your local photo printing shop for high quality work. Plus, you'll probably meet cool people.
  - themodelplumber 3y ago
    Really? That'd be quite a regression. I had a mid-range home color inkjet in the year 2000 that made color prints which were easily as good as local photo printers. You had to enable higher quality prints, and use the special photo paper, of which they provided samples with the printer. Oh and you had to wait about 5 minutes for a full page print, maybe 10. But people would say "this came from your HOME printer?" And there's all these little HP logos on the back of the photo, like a real print shop. I was so impressed by the quality that I printed my first resume on photo paper, and was slightly confused when people were less than blown away by the appearance :-)
  - throwaway81523 3y ago

liendolucas 3y ago

Doesn't this classify as spyware/malware? Who would think a company would go that far to lock-in customers in such a miserable way? I'm being naive but let's hope others do not get creative and follow these outrageous practices.

PopePompus 3y ago

Has there ever been another company that declined as much from its glory days as HP? During the second half of the 20th century HP was a fabled brand. They made beautiful equipment for which there was often no comparable quality alternative in the world. The pocket calculators they built in the 1980s are still sought-after, not just as collectables but also as daily drivers. They built computers during that era, but they we never a "player" in that industry. Then they shifted their focus to computers and began their long decent into the crappy husk of a company that they are today. The engineers who work there should be ashamed when they implement malware like this printer ink scam.

pulvinar 3y ago
Plenty of other companies have declined, or just changed as the people composing them changed. But for HP, yeah, I miss their heyday too. I consider their spinoff Agilent to be the "real" HP now.
scarface74 3y ago
> They built computers during that era, but they we never a "player" in that industry. HP was definitely a player in the PC industry and has been the number one manufacturer at different times.. https://statisticsanddata.org/data/best-selling-computer-brands/ https://statisticsanddata.org/data/best-selling-computer-bra...
- PopePompus 3y ago
  Yes, but I would claim that was when they started going to pot. LONG before the PC era, HP made its own line of computers, which were seldom seen outside of labs, and even labs were much more apt to have a PDP-8 or PDP-11. Their move into commodity computers and peripherals moved them from a situation where they were building the highest quality products available, into one where they had no "moat". After all, who would buy a spectacularly well built PC early in the PC era? After two years you would have wanted to throw it out regardless of how solidly it was built, because back then PCs doubled in performance nearly every year.

crest 3y ago

Sometimes you have to lead them by the neck. Wipe out the company and lock up those responsible for a few decades of real labor.

jimbobimbo 3y ago

I'm glad they are still asking for permission to upgrade the firmware. I was successful at declining that for a year or so already.

bediger4000 3y ago

Kyocera seems to make decent laser jets. I bought a kyocera P2235dw a while back, and it was easy to get CUPS on linux and MacOS to recognize it and use it. Kyocera makes a PPD file for linux available. My P2235dw is a bit noisier than some, but it's not bad.

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neuralRiot 3y ago

This is from 2020 https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-printer-firmware-update-blocked-use-of-third-party-ink-toner-cartridges https://www.classaction.org/news/class-action-claims-hp-prin...

newmanah223 3y ago

You could just not buy an HP printer. I use older Brother laserjet printers that I bought secondhand. A pack of 2 off-brand toner cartridges are about $20 on ebay. Enough people are dumb enough to overpay for ink that HP stays in business. Jailing a CEO won't cure stupidity.

RealityVoid 3y ago
Louis Rossman had a video about exactly this kind of attitude, and he persuaded me that it's not a good one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN44n_F_CPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN44n_F_CPo Please do watch it. His point is that this kind of horrible kind of practices corrupt and spread through industries so they need to be dealt with ASAP if you want to prevent it becoming standard. Besides, you can't be savvy about all fields. Sure, you know about printers, but how many other facets of life you're NOT familiar with and you're duped in making choices that disadvantages you.
- ryao 3y ago
  Louis Rossman has a business interest to say that. Interestingly, if you try asking him to fix a Dell laptop that was a gift from a deceased relative, he will refuse, no matter how much you are willing to pay. I know this from experience.
  - RealityVoid 3y ago
    Maybe. But that does not invalidate what he's saying here. Sure, scrutinize it, counter it. But I find what he said to make sense.

marcodiego 3y ago

FTDI/Microsoft did something similar to counter "counterfeit" FTDI chips[1]. I remember at least one person who bricked and arduino because of it. I instructed everyone I knew who used no-brand arduinos give them away for their colleagues who use linux. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/windows-update-drivers-bricking-usb-serial-chips-beloved-of-hardware-hackers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/windo...

psyfi 3y ago

Boycott HP

g42gregory 3y ago

Good to know. No HP for me, when I will buy a replacement printer.

deleted 3y ago

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29athrowaway 3y ago

Because printers are sold at a loss.

fwlr 3y ago

Jailbreaking and hardware-hacking printers is starting to sound like it could be a whole lot of fun, actually

chrisweekly 3y ago

I got tired of the user-hostile shenanigans, bad software, low-quality output, and high TCO (5 or 6 HP or Canon devices over the years), finally came to my senses and bought a Brother. It "Just Works", is fast and quiet and reliable, does exactly what it's supposed to, and is in such stark contrast to the typically terrible printer UX it's almost funny.

ryao 3y ago

Could someone get the EU to mandate a standard interchangeable ink cartridge format to make this nonsense go away? It would be fascinating to watch how HP responds.

throw7 3y ago

"Using a non AT&T phone is not allowed in order to maintain the integrity of our phone system and to protect our intellectual property." I was looking at printers a year or two ago and noticed that HP's were cheaper, but it was clear from the packaging they were selling "internet" connected printers & ink subscriptions. Those were immediate red flags to me.

aio2 3y ago

well, this is direction the world is heading in

mkl95 3y ago

My HP printer was about as expensive as a couple of cartridges. They are the McDonalds of printers.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago

Can't you just return it? It worked until the upgrade, then it didn't, the update took away a functionality you bought it for, so you can either request a downgrade to a working firmware or a refund? It would be an interesting case for courts indeed and solve a lot of future problems for consumers.

dspillett 3y ago

> to reduce the risk of malware attacks What business does an ink cartridge have containing any significant code that could act as malware? What sort of imbecilic or evil (or both) personage designs a system that makes this even remotely possible and then sells it to the general public? Of course there is no answer to that because it isn't a real reason, it is crap regurgitated by a PR drone who knows next to nothing about tech details and has been told to drop the phrase in to make it look like the company is defending their customers from something rather than being a something their customers need defending from… (or worse, the PR person knows a bit about tech, so knows the malware angle is complete bunkum, and was actively lying.)

koiz 3y ago

great job hp, keep annoying customers that will work!

human 3y ago

I know this has been asked a million times but when are we going to get a great printer company? Right now we have to settle for the least bad manufacturer.

emodendroket 3y ago

My guess is they're trying to squeeze more revenue because fewer people are buying and regularly using printers.

nkrisc 3y ago

I really do think there needs to be stricter regulations about how products like these can be advertised. Do you really "own" the printer if the manufacturer can decide what ink you're allowed to put in it after you've already paid for it? It really seems disingenuous to market these prints as "purchases" or something that you "buy" like you would a loaf of bread. It's not quite "renting", but it's not really "owning" either because when you "buy" it, it's not just yours, but you actually share some degree of ownership of it with the manufacturer.

masswerk 3y ago

> the company also blocks the use of rival cartridges in order to “maintain the integrity of our printing systems, and protect our intellectual property”. One might have thought that the basic IP on ink expired somewhen in the 12th century.

sn_master 3y ago

Why is there CODE running inside of an ink cartridge in the first place?!?! Let alone code that's sophisticated enough that "cheaper rivals" can't just copy it. What is going on in this world?

j45 3y ago

Seems like there’s one reason to disable HP from one’s life - you never really own what hardware you buy from them. If inkjet printer “technology” hasn’t evolved in 25 years enough to not have to worry as much about third party ink, they probably aren’t competent at printers. Or perhaps the corollary that inkjet ink is among the, if not most expensive retail substance per ml/oz.

yieldcrv 3y ago

This is an antitrust violation right? An anticompetitive practice

cgtyoder 3y ago

How is this news? HP has been doing this for a long time.

dramm 3y ago

I stopped buying HP anything. And startups and others I work with I encourage to purchase Brother laser printers. HP is dead to me. Not only this crap, but Brother makes more reliable and better priced/cost of ownership printers.

anbeliever 3y ago

My suggestion is to announce a hackathon with sweat amount and brainstorm ideas on how to make money with the current state. Disabling printers is not a smart move, this will force people to look for workarounds.

ksec 3y ago

I wonder if there is anything we can further innovate on? Something that is as good as Colour Laser but much cheaper.

tonyedgecombe 3y ago
Just don't print stuff. I hardly ever use my printer. I say this as someone who has spent most of my career working on printing related software.
- ksec 3y ago
  I cant. Kid's education and Work related things still requires printing. And actually I have grown much more fond of printing things out in paper rather than keeping it digital as I age. I still print about 10-20 page a month.

anshumankmr 3y ago

Serious question, would re-filling an original HP cartridge do the trick? I am considering buying a printer myself and the two most popular ones seem to be Brother and HP. I have however read Brother is doing similar tactics.

alfanick 3y ago

Do you actually own a printer? Since 10+ years I print stuff either at work or in hotel. If it's pictures, I print them in some printing company with some nice ICC profile I got from them. Owning a printer in XXI century is waste of time.

MetaApe 3y ago

Cost of a new printer $100, cost of 2 HP cartridges… $85 So it’s easy, just buy a new printer one from a non-criminal company.

pauby 3y ago

If people stop buying these printers, then you're voting with your wallet. But people won't. They continue to buy these printers and HP will continue to do this as their sales are telling them it's good. I accept there is more to this than that, but it's the first step.

fmajid 3y ago

I believe this is explicitly illegal in France under the country’s environment and e-waste law. Apple got in trouble because batterygate was interpreted as planned obsolescence, which is forbidden.

costanzaDynasty 3y ago

On one hand you want consumers and a jury to believe that you have no liability when bad actors use your bad drivers to run malicious code on their machines while at the same time doing basically the same thing to your own customers.

rcarmo 3y ago

This is one of the reasons I’ve been meaning to switch to a Brother printer for a while - just waiting for my current HP all-in-one to die (I need a scanner, and until a few years ago also needed a fax). Fortunately we don’t print that much stuff anymore, even with kids’ assignments.