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I see what you are saying, but susbscription according to OP was for "HP Instant Ink". I also assume the cost of the subscription was pretty much to cover the c

I see what you are saying, but susbscription according to OP was for "HP Instant Ink". I also assume the cost of the subscription was pretty much to cover the cost of the Ink. In my eyes, OP has already paid for the ink. If they want to make it fair, then they could define a charge per page and then bill you for actual pages printed at the end of each month. The fact that ink must be bundled in cartridges that print many pages is HPs problem, not consumers, and they can't work around that with a non-sensical subscription model.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago
> If they want to make it fair, then they could define a charge per page and then bill you for actual pages printed at the end of each month. But that's literally how it works! A certain number of pages are included in the monthly cost, and you're billed for additional pages over the limit. The problem is that OP cancelled their subscription shortly after receiving a new cartridge. So now the options are: • Make OP return the cartridge. • Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!) • Prevent OP from using the cartridge. --- > The fact that ink must be bundled in cartridges that print many pages is HPs problem, not consumers, and they can't work around that with a non-sensical subscription model. But at the same time: consumers are choosing to buy this subscription. HP provides an option to buy cartridges outright, without limits, and consumers are choosing the subscription instead. I don't know why consumers are doing that. I would never do it, and I would strongly advise others against it. But many people appear to appreciate the service. Now, maybe those people are being tricked into the subscription via dark patterns, which would be a problem, but a different one.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  > Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!) I feel like this is the only reasonable solution? We do this for mobile phones and leased cars as well. I think it’s fairly well understood.
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    I think that would be reasonable, but isn't it actually a lot less consumer friendly than the current system?
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      I don’t think so? It feels fair to me that I should pay for something that I’m going to keep using, and unfair (and wasteful) that a company would brick a perfectly good ink cardridge.
- brk 3y ago
  >The problem is that IMO, the Problem is that HP markets this as an ink subscription, when it is really a printed page subscription. It's hard to blame someone for thinking that an "ink subscription" would prevent them from fully utilizing ink paid for during the subscription. This seems like HP is trying to capitalize on all kinds of other product subscription models popular today (eg: Aamazon Subscribe and Save, pet food deliveries, water delivery, etc.), but purposefully making the marketing as misleading as possible. Don't call it "instant ink", call it a Print Subscription and you'd probably eliminate most of the problems (and sales...).
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    It's called "HP Instant Ink" because you don't have to keep track of ink cartridge levels, HP takes care of that for you and bills per page instead. I honestly thought all the marketing materials I've seen were quite clear about how the service was billed. I don't think changing the name would lead to more or less confusion or sales.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      It would have reduced confusion for me, anyway. I thought is was an ink subscription service, because that's how they market it.
      - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
        But did you actually go through the buying process? I tried it and you have to select a plan based on number of pages.
        JohnFen 3y ago
        No, I'm talking about the marketing. But is the fact that it's not an ink subscription service made really clear? Because it's absolutely not in their marketing materials. They do everything possible to make it sound like an ink subscription service. I could easily see myself looking at selecting a plan based on number of pages and thinking that they're just using that to measure the amount of ink. "Plan x: 10 pages/month" meaning that you get the amount of ink you need per month to print 10 average pages, not that once you get the ink you need to keep paying for it.
- couchand 3y ago
  > So now the options are: ... or just let them keeps the 50 cents worth of ink and consider it good customer service, let them leave on a positive note so they hopefully choose to come back, rather than burning the bridge? Why do they have to invent some system of enforcement beyond "just don't send any more cartidges"?
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    While subscribed, cartridges are free and you're billed per page. If you could keep the cartridges, canceling would potentially net you many hundreds of extra pages for free. And you could cancel again and again. I think the incentive to cancel right after receiving a new cartridge would be extremely high, to the point of rendering the whole service non-viable. HP would have to limit how frequently customers can cancel, institute a waiting period before resubscribing, or track individual abusers and issue lifetime bans.
    - gruez 3y ago
      Some numbers to demonstrate the above point: The first result for genuine HP ink cartridge on amazon is $23, and has a claimed yield of 170 pages. Meanwhile, the cheapest plan for HP instant ink is $0.99/month. If you could subscribe for the cheapest plan, then instantly cancel, you're basically getting a 96% discount on ink cartridges.
    - indymike 3y ago
      > If you could keep the cartridges, canceling would potentially net you many hundreds of extra pages for free. And you could cancel again and again Solution: non-refundable first month, make it greater than cost of first ink cartridge. Risk removed.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        That eliminates the risk of any angry customer with disabled ink. However, the new problem is that most customers would rather have the current situation pay as you go situation than pay up front. Id be dammed if I pay full price for a product AND a subscription. If it is a 50% discount (as advertised), the customer is still looking at 3 cartridges before they break even.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > But at the same time: consumers are choosing to buy this subscription. I wonder how many understand what they're buying into here. It was certainly very far from clear to me. I thought it was an "ink subscription service." That is, you pay your monthly fee and they provide a continual stream of ink to you. But apparently, it's not that at all. Instead, it's "printing as a service".
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gruez 3y ago
    >I thought it was an "ink subscription service." That is, you pay your monthly fee and they provide a continual stream of ink to you. The pricing section very clearly mentions pages, not ink cartridges. Also, the first FAQ question literally says: >How does HP Instant Ink work? >HP Instant Ink is based on pages, not cartridges [...]
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      > The pricing section very clearly mentions pages, not ink cartridges. When you buy a cartridge it's also measured in pages but you are neither guaranteed that many pages nor limited to that many pages.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Yeah, I understand now. I was 100% not interpreting any of that as meaning what HP means by it. I was thinking that they were using "pages" as a means of measuring the quantity of ink in a way that people can understand, not as literally meaning "pages". I thought that way because I really believed HP was offering an ink subscription service, and my interpretation is the only one that makes sense if that's what it was. But it's not. This feels intentionally ambiguous to me. Perhaps it's not, but I bet my interpretation of what they're saying is not rare. I remain very pleased to avoid HP inkjets, regardless.
- indymike 3y ago
  > The problem is that OP cancelled their subscription shortly after receiving a new cartridge. So now the options are: >• Make OP return the cartridge. >• Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!) >• Prevent OP from using the cartridge • Let the customer use up the remaining ink as a gesture of goodwill so they do not hate HP forever with the rage of 1000 forest fires? > consumers are choosing to buy this subscription. The will never again once experience this. Honestly, people have to remember that customers are not a value in a cell in a spreadsheet.
  - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
    > • Let the customer use up the remaining ink as a gesture of goodwill so they do not hate HP forever with the rage of 1000 forest fires? You think people should be able to buy 1 month of Instant Ink, cancel, and keep the cartridges they paid $3 for?
    - dandandan 3y ago
      Look at the reaction to Adobe's behavior when people terminate their yearly subscription early and are still required to pay for the entire contract. They're not selling Photoshop by month, it's installments on a yearly contract.
    - indymike 3y ago
      Depends on the actual cost of that first ink cartridge. If it's $3 or less, then by all means let them have it. If it is over, then adjust your subscription's start cost to fit.
      - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
        You're still opening yourself up to massive losses in profit. Profit that is desperately needed since the printer itself is being sold at a loss.
nerdjon 3y ago
Thats exactly how it works, except you are paying ahead of time for a bundle of pages and then there is a cost to add more if you need them. https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/instant-ink/plans.html https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/instant-ink/plans.html You are paying $6 for 100 pages. Then you can add 10 pages for $1 (that amount changes based on the subscription). We can argue that the program has some scummy aspects but if we are going to argue about this we should at least look up how it actually works here.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > You are paying $6 for 100 pages. WHAT?! That's insanely expensive. You'd think they'd have to beat the prices to print things out at the local copy shop, at least.
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    I think that's more-or-less in line with the cost of HP ink cartridges. The real moral of this story is that people should stop buying HP printers, or at least HP inkjet printers. (For a laugh, see also The Verge's 2023 Printer Buying Guide: https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-...)
  - nerdjon 3y ago
    Are you are that is expensive? Where I am printing a black and white document is around $0.20. A color print is $0.60. So 100 black and white pages would be $20 and color would be $60. Sure you have to add paper to that calculation but considering that is a 500 count for $10-15 thats still makes it cheaper wether you are doing black and white or color. Now yes you do have to take into account the cost of the machine.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      Well, it's expensive compare to copy shops around here. Color prints in very low quantities start at 5 cents per page. If you are printing a lot of pages, the per page price starts to drop.
mynameisvlad 3y ago
“HP Instant Ink” is the name of the product. When we use “Windows” we don’t complain that they’re not real windows. When we use a Mac, we don’t complain that it’s not real Macintosh apples. It’s just a name. As the parent commenter says, you pay explicitly for a quota of printed pages, not ink or anything else. Therefore, they do define a price per page, anywhere from 10c on their cheapest plan down to 3.57c on their most expensive. Is it a shitty practice? Certainly. But you explicitly dont pay for ink, regardless of the name of the product.
- hn92726819 3y ago
  People aren't complaining about the name Windows or Macintosh being misleading. When companies are misleading about their products, they can be sued for it (look at Veggie Straws or Hagen Daas. Here are more: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b13444ce-27b4-41e7-96cc-552003d6f8d2 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b13444ce-27b4...) The point is, you can't just throw your arms up and say "oh well what a coincidental name HP selected for their product". Misleading names can have a real business impact and might even be intentionally misleading.
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    Oh please, are you going to complain that the ink also isn’t magically teleported to your door? It is called “Instant Ink” after all. It’s the product’s name, so clearly it must be a factual description of what it does. The subscription is more than clear. Please show me where it claims in any way shape or form that you are buying a cartridge of ink that you can keep using after your subscription. I’m waiting.
    - prophesi 3y ago
      I mean, just looking at the product page it's all about receiving ink in a timely manner. It's not until you get to the poorly-named Ink Plans that you see that it's actually all about pages.
      - 3y ago

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

> If they want to make it fair, then they could define a charge per page and then bill you for actual pages printed at the end of each month. But that's literally how it works! A certain number of pages are included in the monthly cost, and you're billed for additional pages over the limit. The problem is that OP cancelled their subscription shortly after receiving a new cartridge. So now the options are: • Make OP return the cartridge. • Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!) • Prevent OP from using the cartridge. --- > The fact that ink must be bundled in cartridges that print many pages is HPs problem, not consumers, and they can't work around that with a non-sensical subscription model. But at the same time: consumers are choosing to buy this subscription. HP provides an option to buy cartridges outright, without limits, and consumers are choosing the subscription instead. I don't know why consumers are doing that. I would never do it, and I would strongly advise others against it. But many people appear to appreciate the service. Now, maybe those people are being tricked into the subscription via dark patterns, which would be a problem, but a different one.

Aeolun 3y ago
> Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!) I feel like this is the only reasonable solution? We do this for mobile phones and leased cars as well. I think it’s fairly well understood.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  I think that would be reasonable, but isn't it actually a lot less consumer friendly than the current system?
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    I don’t think so? It feels fair to me that I should pay for something that I’m going to keep using, and unfair (and wasteful) that a company would brick a perfectly good ink cardridge.
brk 3y ago
>The problem is that IMO, the Problem is that HP markets this as an ink subscription, when it is really a printed page subscription. It's hard to blame someone for thinking that an "ink subscription" would prevent them from fully utilizing ink paid for during the subscription. This seems like HP is trying to capitalize on all kinds of other product subscription models popular today (eg: Aamazon Subscribe and Save, pet food deliveries, water delivery, etc.), but purposefully making the marketing as misleading as possible. Don't call it "instant ink", call it a Print Subscription and you'd probably eliminate most of the problems (and sales...).
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  It's called "HP Instant Ink" because you don't have to keep track of ink cartridge levels, HP takes care of that for you and bills per page instead. I honestly thought all the marketing materials I've seen were quite clear about how the service was billed. I don't think changing the name would lead to more or less confusion or sales.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    It would have reduced confusion for me, anyway. I thought is was an ink subscription service, because that's how they market it.
    - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
      But did you actually go through the buying process? I tried it and you have to select a plan based on number of pages.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        No, I'm talking about the marketing. But is the fact that it's not an ink subscription service made really clear? Because it's absolutely not in their marketing materials. They do everything possible to make it sound like an ink subscription service. I could easily see myself looking at selecting a plan based on number of pages and thinking that they're just using that to measure the amount of ink. "Plan x: 10 pages/month" meaning that you get the amount of ink you need per month to print 10 average pages, not that once you get the ink you need to keep paying for it.
couchand 3y ago
> So now the options are: ... or just let them keeps the 50 cents worth of ink and consider it good customer service, let them leave on a positive note so they hopefully choose to come back, rather than burning the bridge? Why do they have to invent some system of enforcement beyond "just don't send any more cartidges"?
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  While subscribed, cartridges are free and you're billed per page. If you could keep the cartridges, canceling would potentially net you many hundreds of extra pages for free. And you could cancel again and again. I think the incentive to cancel right after receiving a new cartridge would be extremely high, to the point of rendering the whole service non-viable. HP would have to limit how frequently customers can cancel, institute a waiting period before resubscribing, or track individual abusers and issue lifetime bans.
  - gruez 3y ago
    Some numbers to demonstrate the above point: The first result for genuine HP ink cartridge on amazon is $23, and has a claimed yield of 170 pages. Meanwhile, the cheapest plan for HP instant ink is $0.99/month. If you could subscribe for the cheapest plan, then instantly cancel, you're basically getting a 96% discount on ink cartridges.
  - indymike 3y ago
    > If you could keep the cartridges, canceling would potentially net you many hundreds of extra pages for free. And you could cancel again and again Solution: non-refundable first month, make it greater than cost of first ink cartridge. Risk removed.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      That eliminates the risk of any angry customer with disabled ink. However, the new problem is that most customers would rather have the current situation pay as you go situation than pay up front. Id be dammed if I pay full price for a product AND a subscription. If it is a 50% discount (as advertised), the customer is still looking at 3 cartridges before they break even.
JohnFen 3y ago
> But at the same time: consumers are choosing to buy this subscription. I wonder how many understand what they're buying into here. It was certainly very far from clear to me. I thought it was an "ink subscription service." That is, you pay your monthly fee and they provide a continual stream of ink to you. But apparently, it's not that at all. Instead, it's "printing as a service".
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gruez 3y ago
  >I thought it was an "ink subscription service." That is, you pay your monthly fee and they provide a continual stream of ink to you. The pricing section very clearly mentions pages, not ink cartridges. Also, the first FAQ question literally says: >How does HP Instant Ink work? >HP Instant Ink is based on pages, not cartridges [...]
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > The pricing section very clearly mentions pages, not ink cartridges. When you buy a cartridge it's also measured in pages but you are neither guaranteed that many pages nor limited to that many pages.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Yeah, I understand now. I was 100% not interpreting any of that as meaning what HP means by it. I was thinking that they were using "pages" as a means of measuring the quantity of ink in a way that people can understand, not as literally meaning "pages". I thought that way because I really believed HP was offering an ink subscription service, and my interpretation is the only one that makes sense if that's what it was. But it's not. This feels intentionally ambiguous to me. Perhaps it's not, but I bet my interpretation of what they're saying is not rare. I remain very pleased to avoid HP inkjets, regardless.
indymike 3y ago
> The problem is that OP cancelled their subscription shortly after receiving a new cartridge. So now the options are: >• Make OP return the cartridge. >• Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!) >• Prevent OP from using the cartridge • Let the customer use up the remaining ink as a gesture of goodwill so they do not hate HP forever with the rage of 1000 forest fires? > consumers are choosing to buy this subscription. The will never again once experience this. Honestly, people have to remember that customers are not a value in a cell in a spreadsheet.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  > • Let the customer use up the remaining ink as a gesture of goodwill so they do not hate HP forever with the rage of 1000 forest fires? You think people should be able to buy 1 month of Instant Ink, cancel, and keep the cartridges they paid $3 for?
  - dandandan 3y ago
    Look at the reaction to Adobe's behavior when people terminate their yearly subscription early and are still required to pay for the entire contract. They're not selling Photoshop by month, it's installments on a yearly contract.
  - indymike 3y ago
    Depends on the actual cost of that first ink cartridge. If it's $3 or less, then by all means let them have it. If it is over, then adjust your subscription's start cost to fit.
    - Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
      You're still opening yourself up to massive losses in profit. Profit that is desperately needed since the printer itself is being sold at a loss.

nerdjon 3y ago

Thats exactly how it works, except you are paying ahead of time for a bundle of pages and then there is a cost to add more if you need them. https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/instant-ink/plans.html https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/instant-ink/plans.html You are paying $6 for 100 pages. Then you can add 10 pages for $1 (that amount changes based on the subscription). We can argue that the program has some scummy aspects but if we are going to argue about this we should at least look up how it actually works here.

JohnFen 3y ago
> You are paying $6 for 100 pages. WHAT?! That's insanely expensive. You'd think they'd have to beat the prices to print things out at the local copy shop, at least.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  I think that's more-or-less in line with the cost of HP ink cartridges. The real moral of this story is that people should stop buying HP printers, or at least HP inkjet printers. (For a laugh, see also The Verge's 2023 Printer Buying Guide: https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-...)
- nerdjon 3y ago
  Are you are that is expensive? Where I am printing a black and white document is around $0.20. A color print is $0.60. So 100 black and white pages would be $20 and color would be $60. Sure you have to add paper to that calculation but considering that is a 500 count for $10-15 thats still makes it cheaper wether you are doing black and white or color. Now yes you do have to take into account the cost of the machine.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Well, it's expensive compare to copy shops around here. Color prints in very low quantities start at 5 cents per page. If you are printing a lot of pages, the per page price starts to drop.

mynameisvlad 3y ago

“HP Instant Ink” is the name of the product. When we use “Windows” we don’t complain that they’re not real windows. When we use a Mac, we don’t complain that it’s not real Macintosh apples. It’s just a name. As the parent commenter says, you pay explicitly for a quota of printed pages, not ink or anything else. Therefore, they do define a price per page, anywhere from 10c on their cheapest plan down to 3.57c on their most expensive. Is it a shitty practice? Certainly. But you explicitly dont pay for ink, regardless of the name of the product.

hn92726819 3y ago
People aren't complaining about the name Windows or Macintosh being misleading. When companies are misleading about their products, they can be sued for it (look at Veggie Straws or Hagen Daas. Here are more: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b13444ce-27b4-41e7-96cc-552003d6f8d2 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b13444ce-27b4...) The point is, you can't just throw your arms up and say "oh well what a coincidental name HP selected for their product". Misleading names can have a real business impact and might even be intentionally misleading.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  Oh please, are you going to complain that the ink also isn’t magically teleported to your door? It is called “Instant Ink” after all. It’s the product’s name, so clearly it must be a factual description of what it does. The subscription is more than clear. Please show me where it claims in any way shape or form that you are buying a cartridge of ink that you can keep using after your subscription. I’m waiting.
  - prophesi 3y ago
    I mean, just looking at the product page it's all about receiving ink in a timely manner. It's not until you get to the poorly-named Ink Plans that you see that it's actually all about pages.
    - 3y ago