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What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers
- lightedman 10y agoHP can't make amends. They simply need to be sued for anti-competitive practices and violations of the Magnusson-Moss anti-tying provisions.
- cmurf 10y agoI've heard this before, but I'm not aware of any lawsuits that have compelled any printer companies to stop this practice of tying their brand ink to the printer. I'm pretty sure Magnusson-Moss says you can't void warranties, in effect it's not legal to shift liability or burden proof, to disadvantage the consumer. In the case of printers, the warranty is not voided by using 3rd party ink, what they've basically done is add DRM to their printer where it won't use 3rd party ink. So now the consumer is in this position where if they could get the printer to use 3rd party ink, and the printer dies, the printer company can't void the warranty due to 3rd party ink; but because of DRM and DMCA chances are the user can't legally compel the printer to use 3rd party ink anyway.
- lightedman 10y ago"I've heard this before, but I'm not aware of any lawsuits that have compelled any printer companies to stop this practice of tying their brand ink to the printer." Why do you think I said they need to be sued for such a thing? Specifically because nobody has, yet. I know what HP does Re: their product; I've worked for them in the laptop repair department handling the water damage claims. Let me tell you, they did EVERYTHING they could to get out of honoring warranty and paid-for user damage warranty extensions. I'll guarantee you the second someone tries to return the printer for being defective and HP discovers that they used a 3rd-party cartridge, they'll try to get out of the warranty claim. The Magnusson-Moss act specifically states "Under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, the warranty cannot be conditioned to a specific brand of parts, services or vehicle modifications unless those parts or services are provided free of charge." HP charges for the ink carts. I would bet a good attorney would make this a simple case.
- threepipeproblm 10y agoOr they could just never never sell anything to an informed party again.
- pferde 10y agoWatch it being completely ignored by HP.
- anilgulecha 10y agoEpson with their ink-tank system is where the future is at. I see this being used widely around people I know.
- in_the_sticks 10y agoWhy? Color laser printers are getting fairly cheap (mine's a basic printer, granted, but it was quite a bit cheaper than the cheapest EcoTank models). You don't have to worry about your ink drying out or print heads getting clogged.
- onion2k 10y agoThat's great if you print a couple of hundred pages a year, but if you print a couple of hundred pages a day a cheap color laser printer will be very expensive to run and it'll break down often enough to be a significant problem. No doubt your printer serves you well, but that doesn't mean it's a good solution for everyone.
- ZanyProgrammer 10y agoIf you're printing a couple of hundred pages a day, I'd assume its for work and that's part of the cost of doing business. In my personal life I print out like a dozen pages a year? Mostly boarding passes.
- Declanomous 10y agoThe nice thing about inkjets is that they are smaller. I have a Brother HL 5250dn (off the top of my head). I bought it for $75 eight years ago, and I've printed about 30,000 pages through it. Most of those pages were while I was in college and was doing research. Now I print about 100 pages a year, and I mildly resent the printer for all the space it takes up. On the flip side, my company has a set of 3 hp printers that we use twice a year for printing stuff at the last minute for our two conferences, which are less than a month apart. We have to buy new print cartridges every year, cause the ink dries in the container. I think our cost per page is probably close to a dollar. This year we had to throw out a number of unused cartridges because they dried out in the package, despite being less than 18 months old. Moral of the story is that inkjets suck no matter what, and the biggest downside of laser printers is their size.
- SyneRyder 10y agoI generally like the EFF, and I'm a member (albeit at a low paying level)... but if you're really unhappy about this, isn't it better just to stop buying HP printer products? Rather than being so activist & "omg outrage!", why doesn't the EFF publish a list of printers that the EFF currently does recommend? Almost like the Wirecutter does with their product testing reviews. (It sounds like Epson might be one alternative with the EcoTank range.) They could evaluate products against EFF values (driver compatibility with Linux / BSD maybe?) and it would be a more positive & productive response than social media outrage.
- supergreg 10y agoA chart like they did for messaging apps would be nice. Show the pros and cons, let the consumer decide and even bring light to little known, well behaved players if there are any :^)
- kasbah 10y agoDoesn't seem like they are mutually exclusive. Why not do both?
- daenney 10y agoSure it's nice to boycott them but doing it this way has the (slim?) potential of getting that change reverted, restoring full functionality/compatibility to current customers. That said, I really do want to see someone compile that list you suggested.
- awinder 10y agoBecause they've already defrauded existing customers?
- praptak 10y agoBecause consumer choice is a very weak weapon against your freedoms being taken away. Political action is what corporations fear, in particular the threat of organized support behind ideas to regulate them more heavily. Edit: RMS quote: "All in all, I think it is a mistake to defend people’s rights with one hand tied behind our backs, using nothing except the individual option to say no to a deal. We should use democracy to organize and together impose limits on what the rich can do to the rest of us. That’s what democracy was invented for!"
- citycowboy 10y agoHP has also failed to provide drivers for Windows 7 to many of its printers.
- jawns 10y agoI notice that the letter never alleges that HP's actions are illegal, only that they are anti-consumer. Can anyone chime in on the legality of what HP has done? Aren't bait-and-switch tactics generally illegal?
- maxerickson 10y agoThe information included with the product likely states that it should only be used with HP inks. No bait, no switch.
- jawns 10y agoshould, or must? I've seen plenty of products that say you should use only manufacturer-approved products. But I know in the U.S. manufacturers aren't allowed to void warranties just because a third-party component is used. But can manufacturers really step around that by disabling the ability to use third-party components?
- maxerickson 10y agoThe point would be that they weren't claiming working with other inks as a feature, which really undermines the bait and switch argument.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Agustus 10y agoA brother MFC is $250, is sturdier and does not hate me as a consumer. Changing a toner is $50 per cartridge. I recommend it to every person looking for a printer: Buy a laser printer.
- nfriedly 10y agoSeconded. I think I'm on my third toner cartridge in 6 years for my Brother MFC. I bought whatever model consumer reports recommended at the time.
- SixSigma 10y agoBut as a company they cripple other products
- SnacksOnAPlane 10y agoI got my Brother MFC for around $50 with some clever rebate-stacking. It's an awesome little printer that plays very well with Linux. Highly recommended!
- PretzelFisch 10y agoYou really need to look at your 50 cartridge as a cost per page. Some Brother's take a larger capacity cartridge that costs more but results in a lower cost per page.
- dalacv 10y agoI love my Brother MFC (7840W). This is the longest I've ever owned a printer and the toner is not expensive when compared to inkjet.
- alistairSH 10y agoAnother Brother laser printer user here. I did have some strange networking problems when I initially configured mine for wireless use. The Macs on the network consistently lost the ability to connect. My son eventually resolved the problem, though I never bothered to ask how. Never had that issue with Canon, but so far, I much happier with the Brother. The toner cartridge lasts WAY longer than the Canon inkjet and per-age cost is less. I did give up color, but I don't need that often enough to worry about - I can just print at work or go to FedEx/Kinkos.
- alex_lod 10y agoInstructions for rolling back the firmware, which fixed the issue for me: https://www.brozkeff.net/2016/09/01/how-to-downgrade-firmware-on-hp-officejet-pro-8610-to-allow-using-old-or-refilled-cartridges/ https://www.brozkeff.net/2016/09/01/how-to-downgrade-firmwar...
- jasonkostempski 10y agoWhy is the EFF getting involved now? HP has been doing stuff like this for well over 15 years. And why are they calling for apologies and promises? They should be calling for open source software and firmware so things like this can't happen.
- kijin 10y agoEFF is calling for HP to publicly promise not to invoke section 1201 of DMCA against researchers and aftermarket vendors. This is necessary in order for anyone in the U.S. to develop open-source software or firmware for HP printers.
- specialist 10y agoAha. Thank you for explaining. I've been wondering why there are no open source projects. After some casual searching, I found one DIY project that uses a commercially available inkjet cartridge. Previously, I looked on ebay to see what OEM toner drums etc would cost. It might just be cheaper, faster to buy a Brother laser and replace the smarts.
- ts330 10y agohow much does it cost to setup a factory to produce a half decent printer-scanner with ink cartridges and ink supplies? this entire industry is broken. surely basic printers are so well understood by now that every component is a commodity? for the majority of people, a printer that simply just works is good enough. you do not need to upgrade every year. you do not need the latest in ink technology - you want photo prints, do it properly online. manufacturers like HP et al only introduce different printer models / cartridges / drivers etc etc to keep people upgrading. so, what's the cost of doing this? i'd consider it a gift to humanity.
- davidsong 10y agoImagine playing minesweeper on advanced difficulty, blindfolded, but where all the mines are patents. It would be a bit like that unless you wanted 25 year old printer technology.
- 3chelon 10y agoI once got a full refund on a laptop outside of its warranty period because a software update (Windows 8.1) effectively bricked the machine. I demanded it under the UK Sale of Goods Act, which states that a product must be fit for purpose, which it clearly no longer was once the automatic update had happened. I do wonder if this can be more broadly applied to consumer products that effectively change their behaviour after a software update. Is it the same product you originally bought? I would contest not. And surely lawyers could have a field day with this one?
- jkot 10y agoIt would be interesting to return notebook after 1 year, because you disagree with Windows EULA.
- vc4devil 10y agoThe issue is why do people in UK/USA put up with this Orwellian customer control business model? In Asia if a company were to do these things the business would be burnt to the ground, and/or family selling the inferior by design products. ... This is silly, the printer biz has always been 'give away the camera, and take the first born when they need film' You go abroad ASIA and every printer ink or cartridge, as a bladder attached outside where you have an infinite pool of ink/powder for printing, you buy the printer, and walk out the store with the bladder attached. Now only in the USA do they sell the SIM card for the phone by ID, or make it a felony to put free ink or powder in a printer. HP? Canon and all have been doing this for years, but why is it that in USA you still walk out of the store with a boxed printer that has cartridge with a 1/2 life of 10 prints and then the ink/powder costs the same as the original printer? The USA like the Epipen fiasco is FULL retard on screwing people, HP is just on the band-wagon. ... From poor medical care, to Epipen, to all the silly things that USA/UK people put with, its amazing the CORP Fascist government has such willing lemmings to go along with this BS.
- PretzelFisch 10y agoIs their any validity to HP's reasoning for these time limits? I know their print cart includes the print head unlike cannon,epson and lexmark.
- mattkevan 10y agoI've made a solemn vow never to purchase a HP product again, after I discovered that the printer I'd bought (from a major UK retailer) was region-locked to US ink. Which you can't buy in the UK. I threw that thing into the e-waste bin with some force when it finally broke.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoI firmly believe that the best use of those printers is disassembling them and taking their stepper motors for use in DIY 3D printers and other CNC machines.
- TYPE_FASTER 10y agoI stopped buying HP inkjet printers a long time ago. They are horrible.
- cptskippy 10y agoThe HP 722c was their last decent inkjet.
- jkot 10y agoThere is a really scary side of that, users are being punished for doing software upgrades.
- trcollinson 10y agoFull disclosure, I am a former HP Engineer who worked with HP Labs, mostly in the Computer Vision area, and 100% productizing their labs research into viable profit streams. Your milage on my comments may vary. I am not going to attempt to justify what HP does but it will probably sound as though I am (try to remember myself and my entire team were laid off as unprofitable because we were 5% off on our $1 Billion revenue goal, that stung a bit). I will attempt to throw a few business comments that no one is mentioning, and a few engineering thoughts that no one is sharing, into the mix so that you can see an entire picture. How much would it change your perception if you found out that a good portion of the refill ink market is also supplied by HP? Internally, we used to call HP an Ink seller thinly veiled as a technical company. They make more money in the refill market than they do in the cartridge market, though their gross in the cartridge market is still very high. This is because selling bottles of ink with syringes and instructions to refill is way cheaper than selling new cartridges with the manufacturing of the rather complex pieces in the cartridge, the packaging, the shipping to the stores, and the marketing. So why would they suddenly shoot themselves in the foot and kill that market? I'll get there. I hear you say "HP makes so much in ink sales they are trying to monopolize the market and squeeze just a bit more revenue out of it!". I hate to break it to you, most people just buy the refills at Walmart or Costco from the giant displays and have no idea that their printers will be borked if they don't. A majority of the refillers refill with an HP authorized refiller (those people you meet in mall kiosks, most are authorized, they won't bork your printer). Actually HP loses far more money from people using crappy ink refills and crappy knock off cartridges and then calling up to customer service and saying their printers were ruined, thus sending out new printers and ink. The cost of the customer service to deal with that alone is so massive for HP it makes one of the main budget line items at all of the board meetings. So, the technical. Someone in the comments mentions "Why not just build a new printer company! Printing technology can't be that hard!" A further comment says "Oh you could, but wait until the patent lawyers come to get you!" Well, true. A lot of printing technology is patented and pretty locked down. But it's disingenuous to say that printing technology can't be that hard. Imagine the following scenario: You just bought a brand new iPhone 7 with a 12 MP ultra clear lens. You have a party at your house and snap a photo of your child with their technically inept grandparent. Grandparent says "I don't use the facebooks, and I don't understand mail with an e, print me a copy of that photo!" No problem, your HP printer is wirelessly on your network. You print from your phone onto photo paper. Where's the hard part of this technical equation? Well a ton of engineering went into that small 12 MP camera, processing, the wireless network for delivery, etc. But hell, you want to be able to print that photo on any old glossy paper you bought from someone, using a knock off cartridge, with any ink they shove into it. And it better come out looking like an Ansel Adams original, or damn it, HP screwed you as a consumer again! In order for you to get the sharp colors in the right hues with the perfect lines it takes a lot of engineering. In order for you to get the paper to come out dry (either we're talking photo printing or just your black and white document) and not bleed onto the back of the next page in the tray, it takes technology. I'm sorry Cory, but your analogy with the toaster does not hold true. If I get a new toaster and throw bread into it, I only have to try a few dials and settings to get my toast to come out the way I like it. With printing and ink, there are literally thousands of variables from head design to spray to the viscosity of the ink, and on and on and on. Remember for a moment, consumers don't want think about the angle, velocity, and aeration of their red ink, not to mention how to combat humidity to not ruin the viscosity of the ink between the head and the paper (even if it's only for a fraction of a millisecond). They just want a perfect print. And HP just wants their consumers, on the whole, to like their products and not complain to much, and keep on buying stuff. Now, if you really want to scare the pants off of HP and get them out of this market, digitize everything and stop printing. Get tablets for everyone you know. Use them at work and at home. Print less. This is what really worries them in the market.
- bencollier49 10y agoI want to know if this is classed as fraud or not. According to the original story I read, the printer allegedly reported that the cartridge was either broken or missing, and the system was programmed to lie in this way on purpose. Lying to a person in order to gain pecuniary advantage is fraud. Is this analysis correct?
- makecheck 10y agoPrinter cartridges are emblematic of the (sadly widespread) tendency for companies to build things that are obviously wasteful, and clear alternatives should be available. Every time you have to “throw away” something that looks 70% reusable (or in the case of printer ink, not even fully empty), it’s aggravating. We really need to push all companies to build reuse deeply into their products so that none of them feels pressured to go that route just to stay competitive. And if competition is not an issue, and it really is just a scam for more money, executives need to be going to jail. It is not hard to imagine a slightly modified printer cartridge that saves virtually all of the electronics and casing, and just plugs in a new ink pod; or, one that has a “gas tank” kind of port where you can add more ink. They just need to do it.
- icefo 10y agoEpson did it: http://www.epson.com/ecotank http://www.epson.com/ecotank I didn't bought it because it was too big to fit on my desk and I don't know if I will buy an other Epson because they drivers are bad on my Debian. I should try to upgrade them. HP is pretty terrible but the Linux drivers are impressive.
- untothebreach 10y agoI have had great luck with Brother drivers on all the linux machines I've ever tried to use them with, so I would consider that a good option as well.
- branchless 10y agoAgreed, run 100% linux with a brother printer, works great. Setting it up was very simple. I didn't consider buying HP for a second not because of their drivers but because I have an association of HP producing total garbage.
- robotresearcher 10y ago> I have an association of HP producing total garbage. It's so sad what they did to their brand. A cheapish HP laser has been our main lab printer for 14 years and zillions of pages. When I bought it HP was the no-brainer buy. Is it really true that if I bought one now it'd be no good?
- cbhl 10y agoDell isn't a brand people commonly associate with printers, but I highly recommend their Color Laser printers. You spend $300-$400 upfront, but then you get a machine that talks PostScript and PCL (industry standards -- so no worrying about Linux support or installing special printer driver packages) and can be hooked up to the network (using Ethernet or Wi-Fi, depending on the model), and where each color of toner can be replaced independently.
- segmondy 10y agoFor many years I've steered clear of HP products and voice a strong opinion against them. While HP figures it out, we should also preach against them to our colleagues, friends, family and to all. The only way these companies realize they are in the wrong is if their bottom line is affected, until then, they don't have a lick of empathy.
- VT_Drew 10y agoEh, when it comes to computers (not printers) HP isn't that bad. I'll take HP over Lenovo any day. Although HP wouldn't be my first choice when choosing a computer.
- heisenbit 10y agoDavid Packard in "The HP Way" Chapter 12 Responsibility to Society ...Among the Hewlett-Packard objectives Bill Hewlett and I set down was one recognizing the company's responsibility to be a good Corporate citizen.... ...This means being sensitive to the needs and interests of the community; it means applying the highest standards of honesty and integrity to all our relationships with individuals and groups; ...
- bsg75 10y agoThe HP of today is not the same company unfortunately.
- rdiddly 10y agoThere is no practical way for HP to "make amends." I would consider buying an HP printer if they gave me for free, a flawlessly-working printer (or johnny-on-the-spot support and/or enough free replacement printers to achieve the functional equivalent), and 5 years of free ink. In other words, a level of generosity and support that, if they did it for everybody, would put them out of business. Which is probably where they deserve to be. That also, would help make amends. It would also be okay with me if the whole printer market were regulated into some semblance of normalcy by the government. (Assuming the government is competent and capable of governing the corporate class to which it is currently in thrall... obviously not a valid assumption. Everybody who was all GET BIG GOVERNMENT OFF OUR BACKS - enjoy.)
- rdiddly 10y agoCan't sign my name to something with a grammar error: "...the printers now automatically verify whether its ink cartridges are official HP ink..." The word "its" has no antecedent to which it refers. Assuming you mean "belonging to the printers" then it should be "their." Though it highlights a factual inaccuracy - the cartridges are not the property of the printer(s), so maybe just say "the" ink cartridges, or better yet, "any installed" ink cartridges.
- a3n 10y agoI don't understand how this can be a thing. You can buy and use an oil filter from any source for your car. I think it's illegal to require original manufacturer parts. Yet HP is doing exactly that, and in an underhanded way. And this fight, over printer ink, has been going on for years. How can this be?
- jlgaddis 10y agoThis is one of HP's top revenue generators, while the rest of the company is in a slow downward spiral (and has been for years). You better believe that they're going to do whatever {they can,it takes} to preserve that revenue.