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Tell HN: Cancelling HP Instant Ink prevents cartridges from being used

• enono 3y ago
  This is why you must reject colored printing and buy the based laser printer
• apnew 3y ago
  Same for Cannon pixma print plan. I have 2 brand new cartridges that I cant use because apparently they can be used only if I keep ~$6 monthly subscription which I absolutely dont need. HP and Cannon are on the black-list of brands.
• smsm42 3y ago
  I eagerly await when they invent ink that would fade unless you pay for the daily subscription. With the explanation that you are just renting the printing result, but it's actually owned by HP.
• moi2388 3y ago
  Who still prints and why? Like ewww..
• kazinator 3y ago
  I'd never buy an injket printer of any kind, or a Laser/LED printer that isn't a Brother.
• Friedduck 3y ago
  How long is this model sustainable? How long before they have a reputation of a firm to be avoided? This isn’t the first we’ve heard and I’d wager we all know it by now. So how long before the non-technical general population shuns the brand? I can’t believe that this strategy wins for them in the long run.
• FuefinaWG 3y ago
  Instant Ink ("II") is a POS. If you get a subscription to II and then cancel it, you will no longer be able to use ink by a manufacturer other than HP. I don't care if I had to return the II when I canceled it; that's no big deal. But to make me use only HP ink? That's quite a bit of BS. I did order HP ink because my printer stopped printing. (Luckily I have a Brother printer that's hooked up and printing (with 3rd party ink.)) Once the HP ink runs out, I'm going to try to refill the cartridges with other ink. Hopefully my FU to HP works.
• p0d 3y ago
  After finding this out for myself I will not pay for another HP cartridge subscription service again.
• ChildOfChaos 3y ago
  This is on you. This is always what Instant Ink was, it's always been very clear and this is what you signed up too, so i don't know what the issue is? You shouldn't think of it is cartridges or ink, but in terms of pages per month while you pay, when you stop paying you get no pages. This was introduced a long time ago, I used to work in retail, it was always very clear what this was. You don't try to play a song on Spotify from a downloaded playlist, two years after you stopped paying for Spotify, although stupid, that is how you have to think of this subscription and that is always what it was and it was always very clear.
• jarsin 3y ago
  I had to buy a printer recently, too. When I saw those subscriptions my first thought was there will come a day when everything we "own" is tied to a subscription/account. The days of actually owning something that you can self service/repair are coming to an end.
  • api 3y ago
    I learned the reason for this push as I learned about business accounting and particularly how businesses are valued. Recurring revenue is valued at higher multiples than non-recurring revenue, and the math for how to value it is much simpler. Higher valuation multiples mean more ability to raise money or access debt liquidity in the market at a lower cost in either equity or interest. This creates a powerful systematic incentive for companies to look for any and all opportunities to tack a subscription onto everything. It’s so powerful that it can make sense for a company to trade higher non-recurring revenues for lower recurring revenues. The only thing that will push back is if consumers revolt and stop buying things that require subscriptions, especially if the subscription doesn’t make any sense or as with this case has unacceptable terms. Bottom line is that you get what you incentivize. If you see a pathological trend, look for the incentives.
    • AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      > The only thing that will push back is if consumers revolt and stop buying things that require subscriptions, especially if the subscription doesn’t make any sense or as with this case has unacceptable terms. As we should. I don't care how much sense it makes for the business. It doesn't make sense for me, and I'm the one making the purchasing decision. Those who play this kind of game to trade higher non-recurring revenue for lower recurring revenue won't have my revenue, whether recurring or non-recurring. The big problem is when it's hidden. If it's clearly spelled out that this is the way they're going to play, fine. But if you buy a printer and then later find out that they're doing this, that's basically a deceptive business practice, because the terms aren't what you were led to believe they are. That's something where consumer protection laws should apply.
  • hikingsimulator 3y ago
• brandrick 3y ago
  Yup, we've got one of these printers. Utter trash.
• api 3y ago
  Never ever buy an HP printer. Honestly I wouldn't buy an HP anything at this point, since if they do this with printers they'll do it for other stuff.
  • benatkin 3y ago
    Yeah me either. TBH I wasn't gonna buy anything from HP anyway, though.
• TheFreim 3y ago
  Within the next couple years I'll likely be looking for a new printer. What are the best printers today that don't engage in this sort of nonsense?
  • pyrelight 3y ago
    If all you need is B/W, get the legendary Brother HL-2280DW. There might be a newer version of it.
  • simcop2387 3y ago
    If you don't need photos, I've been incredibly happy with a Brother Color Laser printer. I originally went with one because I go months without needing to print something, and then the printer will just be ready and working when I do. Unlike an inkjet there isn't anything to dry out or really fail with age the same way. Along with that, as far as I know Brother isn't even trying any of the shady stuff on their few inkjet printers like cryptographically signed cartridges (like HP), or subscription services (like HP), or any of the driver shenanigans where they include all kinds of unnecessary things (like most other manufacturers). That's not to say that I know they won't ever do those things, or that they have no plans to, but they at least right now seem to not be pulling this same kind of anti-consumer crap so far.
    • detritus 3y ago
      I second this - I'm never buying another inkjet printer again, because my use of colours is fairly minimal these days and I have a box full of ink cartridges for two printers whose printheads are irredeemably clogged (not inexpensive models from Epson and Canon). Sod it. I've got a wee Brother laser B&W printer for 98% of my printing needs, and the email address for a local printshop who can slightly overcharge me whenever I need a photo (etc) printing.
    • caf 3y ago
      Yes, I've been happy with the Brother HL-L3230CDW. Seems to work fine with Linux, Android, iOS and Chromebook clients on the same network as well, which is nice.
    • 3y ago
• amelius 3y ago
  Send your now-useless printers and cartridges to the EU committee that's supposed to deal with these malpractices.
• blibble 3y ago
  as much as I hate subscriptions this doesn't sound unreasonable you're paying for X pages a month, and the ink is supplied to you to allow you to do that would it be any different if you were in the local staples paying for X pages/month if you cancelled would you feel entitled to go behind the counter and take the ink you've "purchased"?
  • michaelmior 3y ago
    I think one major difference is that a reasonable default expectation is that when I have an ink cartridge in my possession, I am able to use it until it's empty. I wouldn't have the same expectation of the ink cartridge at the local copy center. I'm sure that HP states somewhere that the ink is their property even if you physically have it, as the OP said. However, I think whenever you violate reasonable expectations, you should also make an extra effort to make sure the consumer is aware.
    • bgorman 3y ago
      You are not able to use it until it is empty. You are paying for X pages a month. If you have printed X pages, you need to pay more. You don't need to use the subscription model to use a printer, you can use regular cartridges.
      • michaelmior 3y ago
        I understand how the subscription model works. My point is that I think it is a very reasonable expectation that once you have an ink cartridge, you should be able to use it until empty. This was evidently not made clear to the OP. I'm saying that this seems to be a failure on the part of HP to clearly communicate the restrictions in place with the subscription model. I'm not suggesting they violated their agreement with the user, I'm saying that the terms of the agreement could have been more clearly communicated.
  • db48x 3y ago
    If you cancel your magazine subscription, do the magazines you have already received vanish, or become unreadable? An ink subscription should be exactly the same. You send them money every month, they send you ink every month. When you cancel the subscription, you still own the ink that you paid for.
• jeroenhd 3y ago
  I recall seeing this mentioned in the setup screen when they tried to sell my uncle on their stupid ink scheme. This crap is why reading the simplified terms of service matters. It's a deviously smart trick, because people who let their subscriptions lapse probably really need to get something printed right when they find out about this restriction. You then have a choice between running to the mall and buying a new ink cartridge (or more realistically, a full printer, because those are cheaper) or paying for another year of ink subscriptions and continuing the print right away. Friends don't let friends buy HP consumer printers. If you can get your hand on a second hand laser printer you'll probably be happy for years, but their inkjets are manufactured e-waste.
  • geraldwhen 3y ago
    Printers do not come with a full ink cartridge. The ink itself is a better deal if you buy it online.
  • themerone 3y ago
    I tell people to avoid inkjets altogether. Inkjets are great for photos and people who print a few pages a week, but are absolutely the worst for people who rarely print anything. Leave an inkjet alone for months and you can end up with permanently clogged print heads.
    • hef19898 3y ago
      I still like to think that those inkjets using tanks you fill up yourself are better in that regard. More expensive to buy, but cheaper per page and, I hope, more tolerant to 3rd party ink (unless I miss clever way to verify the liquid itself comes from the OEM once the bottle was opened. Come think of it, I am sure there are some stupidly complex ways to do just that...). But you actually never know, do you?
      • Gigachad 3y ago
        I looked in to those and you can still get dried print heads. You also have the issue that all of these home ink jets have a waste pad which is not user serviceable. Once you hit a hardcoded number of pages, the printer bricks itself as the pad is full. To resolve this you are meant to buy another printer. Or you can pull the whole thing to bits and try to replace the pad, then find some way to hack the firmware to reset the counter.
• ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  Oh yeah... hp.. https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/sustainable-impact.html https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/sustainable-impact.h... How the hell is it sustainable to throw half a cartridge away?
• PaulCarrack 3y ago
  You bought one of the printers that end with an "e". For example: HP OfficeJet Pro 9025e vs HP OfficeJet Pro 9025 OR HP LaserJet Pro M234sdwe vs HP LaserJet Pro M234sdw The "e" printers support subscription based ink and require an internet connection otherwise they won't print. - It says it all over the outside of the box - It says it in the box on multiple sheets of paper in big text - It says it when you are installing the driver - It says it when you are purchasing the subscription The cost of the printer is subsidized to some extent (similar to carrier locked phones) and they are subscription based printers. I don't understand how HP is at fault here. Subscriptions are a shitty business model, but nobody forced you to buy a subscription based printer. If you didn't want that, then you should not have bought the "e" model, you made that decision yourself, ignoring all the warnings outside and inside the box, regretted it later, then blamed HP.
  • jamesy0ung 3y ago
    Stating on the packaging that it is subscription based does not change the fact that it is a very anti-consumer move from HP.
    • PaulCarrack 3y ago
      But like anything that has a subscription, don't buy it if you don't agree with it. Purchase the non-subscription based printer.
      • londons_explore 3y ago
        Just like I can purchase the non-subscription based Netflix to watch Stranger Things... Oh, wait...
        • wccrawford 3y ago
          You can purchase the Blurays. You don't need Netflix to watch Stranger Things.
        • pierat 3y ago
• paulcole 3y ago
  > The subscription promises to send you ink when you're running low as long as you print within the designated number of pages. Wait, what exactly are you subscribing to? Their marketing page is very clear that it’s a set number of pages per month: https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/l/v2 https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/l/v2
• screwturner68 3y ago
  Gotta love the subscription model, don't buy a BMW with heated seats. Honestly it's a horrible model for the customer but it's the world we live in now, you don't own anything you are just renting and are responsible for repairs. Sadly HP isn't any different than anybody else, try getting a white paper from Redhat without a subscription, try getting firmware from Dell without a subscription. First we monetized everything and now we are monetizing everything's lifecycle
  • viraptor 3y ago
    > try getting firmware from Dell without a subscription https://linux.dell.com/ https://linux.dell.com/ not only publishing firmware, they're also members of fwupd / LVFS. > Sadly HP isn't any different than anybody else Don't give in. There are less shitty companies and at least in the tech business there's many of us who have extra money that we can vote with, or can make recommendations to others (don't buy HP, maybe don't buy an inkjet in general).
  • tenebrisalietum 3y ago
    If HP wants to rent printers to consumers that's fine, but then the transaction should look like a rental and not a sale. That means: - If I "buy" it in a store there should be clear signage that it is a rental and that I don't own the hardware. Ideally HP would mail consumers printers. - there should be a line item on some bill saying "Printer rental" and when the rental concludes, they should send a shipping label to take it back. - if the printer breaks, they should send a tech out to repair or exchange via mail. Heck the store where I rented it from could be paid by HP to do that. Yes, this would cost HP money. Yes, HP might have to make hardware that isn't flimsy.
    • screwturner68 3y ago
      I'm not trying to justify this nonsense I'm just saying it's become a standard business practice and not not being transparent with the customer is also pretty standard business practices. We as consumers need to decide what we are going to do either accept that this is just business as usual or stop supporting companies with questionable business practices our money. Sadly people are way to easily sucked in with prices that are to good to be true and then when they learn the real cost of "ownership" they are shocked, as the saying goes if the deal seems too good to be true than it likely is and a color printer with a built in scanner for $60 falls into that category.
• kevincox 3y ago
  I think that HP does a lot of shady shit. But I actually think that this is fair. If you purchase a subscription for 100 pages/month or whatever you can't expect to cancel and keep printing for a while after you stop paying. I think it is reasonable that they provide both options. You can go with the subscription and you don't own the ink, but HP manages refilling and replacing as needed. Or you can buy your own ink and mange it yourself. I don't think that you can expect both. I do agree that it is a bit wasteful but unfortunately it isn't economical for them to retrieve the partially-used cartridges from cancelled subscriptions, so it is just thrown away. It would be interesting if they offered a "buy out" option. When you cancel the subscription with half an ink cartridge they could sell it to you for half of the price. If they allowed use of cartridges after the subscription expiry then the system could easily be abused by only subscribing for one month at a time to refill your cartridge then cancelling until you actually used it up. There are workarounds for this like minimum subscription length or blocking people based on address but they have other problems. The real shady shit is rejecting third-party cartridges, that should be illegal. It's your printer and you should be able to decide what ink you use.
  • throwaway292939 3y ago
    The easy solution that should've been implemented is to let you "ride out" your last cartridge.
  • runamok 3y ago
    If you treat your customers like thieves then they'll act like thieves. All of the above is a big waste of time for 99.9% of customers. At the minimum just let it go the first time as long as a customer has a reasonably long subscription. You know their margins on these things are nuts. I know to me and many other IT type folks HP is the last choice.
  • cmeacham98 3y ago
    I would argue that the 'Instant Ink' service as a whole is somewhat shady and an environmental disaster, but I agree that this particular part is an obvious outcome that shouldn't really be controversial.
• astura 3y ago
  This has been discussed to death here. This is a subscription service for X pages per month, not X ink cartridges per month/year. If you cancel the subscription you can't keep printing. If you don't like subscriptions don't sign up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34688856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34688856
• JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Isn't that exactly what 'subscription' means? Read the contract.
• 404mm 3y ago
  Based on other similar threads, people tend to suggest Brother. Are there any other (slightly better) alternatives? I need to replace my current color&laser Brother MFA . The printer still works but software support (on MacOS) has been discontinued. (The profile for CUPS comes with some helper bin/utility, it’s not a plain profile file). Also worth mentioning, the (smaller, not high-yield) color cartridges used to be ~$45 on and now they go for $70.
  • dmajor2 3y ago
    I set up a raspberry Pi W with cups and Air Print to an older Brother laser over USB. Now I can wireless print from all my devices and keep this beast going for longer.
    • 404mm 3y ago
      Nice workaround. I run a container with CUPS set up for Air Print as well but I’m using it only with some somewhat-compatible driver for different model. I suppose I could spend more time on it and see if I can make it work with one of the official Linux drivers and have a full blown support.
  • kipchak 3y ago
    The ink tank systems might be worth a look the downside is the printer is more expensive upfront but the ink cost per print is very low. Ours is a Epson/Ecotank ET-15000 but Canon, Brother and HP have similar systems.
  • kalleboo 3y ago
    Yeah I'm unhappy with Brother as an option as there is no FreeBSD support (the official Linux PPDs do a bunch of weird voodoo with bundled pre-compiled binaries of Ghostscript etc that I was unable to untangle). There's a PPD on openprinting but it's black-and-white only and doesn't support all of the printer's features.
    • 404mm 3y ago
      Yup, that’s the one! I remember having some issues on Arch as well. Had to unpack and dissect the official drivers that Brother provide for Debian or w/e distro was it.
• calini 3y ago
  Can we actually have a discussion on here about printer manufacturers' practices, and which companies engage in this type of behaviour? If we could figure out who the companies that don't engage in this are, maybe we can change our purchasing decisions slightly and help steer the market towards less craziness.
  • SargeDebian 3y ago
    Every single post about printers turns into that and the answer is mostly Brother.
  • wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Neolib fantasy to shape your world via consumption decisions. Try “5 whys”ing your way to a more actionable root cause and sharing that message instead of a fragile “Wirecutter revolution”. Pretty cool that we've let ourselves be led into a world where there's a rising private tax on use of "the printing press" and accept the choices that enable monopolizing control in the first place. Buyer's boycotts promote accepting the parameters but rejecting this one bad thing that just happens to be a product of those parameters and leave people exhausted from uninspiring campaigning with questionable impact. Like voting blue (or red whichever you want) harder to try to fix this kind of problem. Speaking practically on topic, I haven't seen any Wirecutter-level consumer awareness campaigns in tech lead to material lasting change against corporate interests. The state of most Wirecutter type coverage of product categories seems to be generally worsening and getting more expensive rather than resulting in consumer-friendly change from market pushback. What you advocate for is essentially a Wirecutter movement and is as radical as Wirecutter is which we can see the underwhelming results of already.
    • teddyh 3y ago
      You’re downvoted, but you’re right; “personal carbon footprint”, plastic straws, and boycotts of companies behaving egregiously etc. are all traps to blame individuals for problems caused by other actors. Empowering individuals to solve societal problems rarely work.¹ 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178680
• tombert 3y ago
  This is why I never buy ink jet printers, and I also usually buy thoroughly-used office printers. I have a 14 year old HP office laser printer (P4515x). After replacing the main cartridge (with a third party one!) and upgrading the RAM, it works fine, and it plugs into my ethernet. MacOS recognized the bonjour protocol using the generic PostScript driver. It works fine plugged into my 10 gigabit ethernet switch with a cat 6 cable. I mean, it's 2d printing; this is something we've more or less nailed since the 90s (more or less with the advent of PostScript I think?); as long as the computers in my network can speak the protocol, I don't really see what I'm missing out on by not having a new printer...except subscription fees.
  • mschuster91 3y ago
    > as long as the computers in my network can speak the protocol, I don't really see what I'm missing out on by not having a new printer Borderless printing, color accuracy, the ability to use high-quality photo paper come to my mind.
    • tombert 3y ago
      That's fair; all I ever really print are documents (academic papers, lecture notes, and forms that I need to sign). The printer I mentioned is black and white, so color isn't on my radar. I'll admit that maybe I was a bit reductive with my statement, let me amend it a bit: for a large percentage of common printing jobs, I don't think a lot of people are missing out by opting to not buy a new printer (except subscriptions).
    • acjohnson55 3y ago
      Those have all existed for a couple decades. (I used to work at a printer company.)
  • karamanolev 3y ago
    I'm using my ink jet to decorate my home with my own photographs. Borderless printing on high quality thick glossy photo paper, photo rugs and other types of paper is crucial and completely impossible with new or old office printers. The fidelity and color saturation just isn't there. Even the newest color laser printers are so far behind that they're unusable for this purpose. I'm not saying it doesn't work for you, I'm saying it doesn't work for me and answering the question "what is one missing out on".
• londons_explore 3y ago
  This is your time to channel that anger into dumping the firmware and firing up Ghidra. With a few small tweaks, you can probably even trick it into telling HP that every cartridge is immediately empty and get them to send you hundreds of cartridges all for $0.99/month.
  • javajosh 3y ago
    Is (small) evil in the service of good still evil? You're better off just getting a Brother all-in-one. Those things are tanks and Brother, for some reason, seems to have executive leaders with ethics. Their scanning software is also the only one that works well. I really with that the public (and hence, retailers) would stop hawking cheap HP nonsense. It would be like if AT&T resurrected the Bell Labs name for a software sweatshop in Bangalore.
    • Double_a_92 3y ago
      My brother printer really likes to waste ink while cleaning itself once a week...
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • kalleboo 3y ago
        Unfortunately that's just a reality with inkjets, if not then the heads would clog and it becomes a paperweight. Anyone who doesn't print often really should buy a laser jet. If you don't print often and you print photos, just order it from a photo printing service.
        • Double_a_92 3y ago
          Is there a reason why it must do that for like 2 minutes, while making horrible loud noises? Why can't it just fake-print some small image?
        • londons_explore 3y ago
• mschuster91 3y ago
  I... don't see the problem? The subscription is 1€ a month for up to ten pages, with accumulation over two months for unused credit. That's next to nothing, a whole year of that costs less than a menu at McDonalds.
  • Double_a_92 3y ago
    Agree, for someone that only rarely needs to print some document this is a much better deal than buying a 30$ cartridge and then having it dry out or run out from cleaning...
• lastangryman 3y ago
  Can't believe people in this thread condoning this practice and sticking up for HP! OP is in possesion of the physical product that his subscription PAID FOR. They can say the sub is for "pages printed", but that's complete nonsense and everyone knows it. It's the INK OP is paying for. They have paid for that ink. They own that ink. They should be able to use it. Attaching a subscription to a physical product, and then disabling the use of that physical product, is complete nonsense. The phone contract analogy is a poor one. You are paying off the cost of the phone with the contract. They don't send you a new phone each month, and then stop you using it because you didn't use all your minutes. Normalisation of stuff like this is alarming. Consumers are done for really, I despair as to where it is all going. Especially when you have a usually informed HN audience sticking up for it.
  • Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    > They can say the sub is for "pages printed", but that's complete nonsense and everyone knows it. I actually don't think that's nonsense, because HP is charging per page, not per ink cartridge. You don't get a new ink cartridge every month, you get the ability to print more pages, and only new cartridges as required to print those pages. Put another way, OP's subscription only paid for a fraction of their ink cartridge, not the whole cartridge. HP could make OP mail back their half-empty cartridge, but that likely would raise the overall cost of the service due to shipping logistics. I agree the whole concept of this service feels scummy and I would never recommend it to anyone, I just don't find this particular aspect so unfair.
    • lastangryman 3y ago
      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.
• josephcsible 3y ago
  To everyone defending this, if you were to cancel a physical magazine or newspaper subscription, should the publisher be allowed to send goons to break into your house and burn all of the issues they already sent you, or should they have to settle for just not sending you any more new ones?
  • boomboomsubban 3y ago
    I'm not defending this, but that's not really a fair analogy. It's more like "the gym already gave you a keycard, why should they cancel your access just because you stopped paying for the membership?"
    • buzzy_hacker 3y ago
      Every gym membership I’ve had would let you finish the current month.
      • mwint 3y ago
        To extend the strained analogy, they do let you finish the month (of printing pages). The complaint here is more “my keycard barcode is still legible, but it stopped working at the end of the month”.
      • simiones 3y ago
        As does this one from HP. The OP mentions explicitly that they let their subscription expire, and the printer THEN stopped printing.
      • charcircuit 3y ago
        Cancellations and plan downgrades are effective after the last day of the current billing cycle. https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/cv/instantink https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/cv/instantink
    • josephcsible 3y ago
      I'd consider that more analogous to what HP did if they made you send back all of your old cartridges, but they don't. HP doesn't treat the cartridges like you're renting them, and doesn't care about getting them back, just that you can't use them anymore.
• ivolimmen 3y ago
  As I told here before; buy a printer, don't rent it. Get yourself a EPSON EcoTank. Yes they are pricy, yes they require some more maintenance but you BUY the printer. EPSON does not care if you buy ink from them of another party. No chips in the cartridges because there are non. It works with tanks. You can fill it with the ink you want. When I use a online store to buy ink that has clone-cartridges for each type of printer on the planet they do not have a replacement for the ink for my printer as they can not supply cheaper ones than the one EPSON sells. €40 for a set of four. And they last for about 3 years. And since I do not print that much... way longer...
  • acjohnson55 3y ago
    I'd recommend a color laser for most people, unless they print a pretty high volume. Ink goes bad over time.
    • theandrewbailey 3y ago
      Why is a color laser not suitable for high volume? What is "high volume" in this case? (100 pages per week? day?) Laser printers are cheaper than inkjet on a per-page basis.
      • gruez 3y ago
        You're misreading the comment. The parent commenter is trying to say that since ink goes bad over time, it doesn't make sense to use inkjet printers unless you have high print volume to justify it. Therefore, the logical replacement is laser printers, which do not go bad over time (or at least at a much slower rate).
      • acjohnson55 3y ago
        You're correct that if you're printing 100s of pages per week, laser is the way to go. That wasn't really what I was talking about, although I realize I was not very specific. Most people just print a few pages every few weeks, and I'm arguing that those are also good use cases for laser. The upfront cost of laser is pretty low these days. You can often get a color all-in-one laser, with duplexer, for under $200. The sweet spot for ink is somewhere in the middle. Printing regularly, but not high volume.
• bookofjoe 3y ago
  This is the darkest possible pattern of all possible dark patterns.
• bilekas 3y ago
  Yeah, I don't understand the defense to this. There are a lot of analogies being thrown around but it doesn't address the main point. If you purchase a printer, it should be able to print. The subscription is described as : > The subscription promises to send you ink when you're running low as long as you print within the designated number of pages. So it seems its only related to when the ink is getting low. It doesn't mention "You will lose the ability to print documents should you cancel your subscription." That would be considered leasing a printer. This is predatory too as the OP mentions the subscription was attached to the newly purchased printer. > I bought an HP printer that came with an HP Instant Ink subscription a year ago. So IMO there is no defense of HP here. On their terms : https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/v2/terms https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/v2/terms > Consequences of Cancellation. You agree that HP will not be liable to You for any cancellation of Your Service or refusal of access to the Service or Site. Upon cancellation of Your Service for any reason mentioned in this Agreement, any rights granted to You under this Agreement will terminate and You must immediately cease all use of the Service and return the Subscription Cartridges to HP as detailed in Section 5.e (“Subscription Cartridges must be returned by You to HP”). Furthermore, any Promotion Incentives that you earned pursuant to the Refer-a-Friend Promotion will immediately expire upon termination of Your Service. No mention of the printer being disabled ?
  • ceejayoz 3y ago
    > If you purchase a printer, it should be able to print. And it can. You just need to buy a regular cartridge now. You purchased the printer. You licensed the ink cartridge, via pretty clear terms.
    • bilekas 3y ago
      That's so bizzare to me, the subscription payments surely would be considered payment of cartridge ? I am mistaken obviously as I thought it was a convenience of delivery subscription.
      • ceejayoz 3y ago
        You're not paying for the cartridges if you buy the "Instant Ink" thing. The plans all talk about pages-per-month. No subscription, no pages.
• rolivercoffee 3y ago
  I spent the best part of a sunny Saturday trying to work out why an elderly relative’s HP printer wasn’t working. The error messages were incredibly unhelpful (I like to believe they were too ashamed to tell you what was actually wrong). Turns out their credit card was due to expire soon. Was shocked when I found that was the issue & had a hard time explaining what had gone wrong. I’ll definitely advise against HP printers going forward.
  • toast0 3y ago
    Yeah, I had to debug this with my MIL over the phone. Her card had expired and she ignored the many many many emails, and the printer had a light blinking, but it wasn't listed in the manual, and I don't use the service, so... Once I figured out what the problem was, she was able to get the printer re-enrolled, but then it took a while for the printer to realize. And then, the ink was apparently dried up, because it didn't want to actually print. I don't have a problem with the HP printing plan, but clear messaging on the printer would help, and inkjets not being terrible would also help. (Also, it would help if my MIL wouldn't leave problems unsolved ... 'Ohh, it stopped working a few months ago', but that's a different issue)
• tristor 3y ago
  People defending this need to rethink their ethics. This is the absolute scum behavior the printer industry has been known for (and successfully sued over in the past). If you buy a printer and separately get an ink subscription, the subscription lapsing should have nothing to do with the functioning of the printer. Ink subscriptions and printer leasing are old hat in the business space, and in no case does the printer stop functioning (leased or purchased) because you cancel the ink subscription.
• krupan 3y ago
  It's a page subscription. If you print a page with one dot on it, or a full color 8x10 photo you are charged the same, one page. It's not an unk subscription.
• Aardwolf 3y ago
  HP cartridges with DRM have come up a lot on HN lately. I have a 5+ year old HP laser printer. I'm sure the toners have some form of electronic "authenticity" check, but at least they work without requiring network connectivity or a subscription, and they were also still able to squeeze out images until the very end until the results visibly started lacking color, the printer showed warning messages but didn't refuse printing (nor scanning!) or anything. So given the many articles about HP DRM on HN now: is this subscription something new that HP introduced in the last 5 years? Or is it only for inkjet printers, not laser? Just asking because if this laser printer breaks and I need to find a new one, can one still get one without subscription requirement from HP today? I like the hardware, but would not buy if it requires this now.
• aristofun 3y ago
  The same reason I will never subscribe for a desktop app (parallels, 1password etc), I will do my best to talk every friend out of supporting scams like HP
• neurostimulant 3y ago
  It's like subscribing to Dollar Shave Club and later finding out you can't shave your beard with the blades already sent to your home when your subscription expires because the TOS said the subscription is for shaving x times per month and the blades are owned by the company. Complete nonsense.
  • dw64 3y ago
    Except that dollar shave club sells you replacement parts at a reduced rate (eg 9$ parts for 6$ per month) while HP sends you ink cartridges that usually cost around 100$ for 3$ per month to use. The service wouldn’t make any sense for them if you’re allowed to use them outside of the subscription. This constant complaining about InstantInk is completely nonsense.
• qwery 3y ago
  PSA: When you sign up for a subscription service you're telling the company they should keep doing what they're doing. What they're doing is repeatedly taking (often small) steps to degrade your rights and give themselves more power over you & your wallet. If you give them an inch, they'll take the piss. (I am not suggesting that OP or anyone else getting screwed on a subscription thing are in the wrong.)
• reaperducer 3y ago
  Up next: You're just renting the ink, even when it's on the paper. And if you don't continue your IaaS subscription, everything you already printed will disappear.
• JohnFen 3y ago
  HP is one of the scummier companies in a very scummy product space.
• tiku 3y ago
  Meanwhile companies as Epson make printers with seperate refillable ink holders. Never looked back.
• jwr 3y ago
  Setting all the morality and ethics discussions aside, after so many of these stories, I made a mental note not to buy any HP printer ever again, just because there seems to be so much complexity and unexpected trouble. It's just easier to buy, say, a Brother printer and forget about it for many years (and I speak from experience here). I don't need printer drama in my life.
  • thiht 3y ago
    I bought a Brother printer (inkjet) last year, or maybe the year before. When I need it it invariably works. This is not a lot to ask, yet it's the only printer I've ever had that... behaves? It has one job and does it well.
    • gtop3 3y ago
      I've had very good luck with purchasing printers that are marketed towards small business instead of families. Take a peak at what printer your optometrist is using and ask one of the staff how they like the printer. Tactics like this is how I find my printers.
      • thiht 3y ago
        That’s a great idea! I’ll keep it in mind for my next printer (in 20 years or so hopefully, given that will happy with mine :D) or other stuff
  • hotpotamus 3y ago
    That's my stance on HP products as a whole. One of the weirder stories I ever heard was from our DCops at one place that said they found trash/debris in HP servers that came in a factory-sealed box (the example I was told was small plastic bags). And essentially every HP product has caused me pain somehow or another, so they will never get any dollars that I have a say over.
• jacobr1 3y ago
  I recommend brother laser printers to everyone. They are like Toyotas: beasts that just keep running without issues for years. The cartridges last for a long time and also do dry up (a problem I had with inkjets due to infrequent printing).
  • sgtnoodle 3y ago
    I've been happy with mine. I was doing a hobby project that involved a toner transfer onto brushed aluminum, and bought a Brother printer for like $90. The low capacity "starter" toner cartridge lasted through a few hundred pages, including printing all our wedding invitations. We designed the artwork to look like the output of a printing press, and printed onto parchment-like paper. I've since swapped in a third party cartridge, and figure I won't need to replace it for another 5-10 years. The print quality is a bit lower than the OEM one, but certainly gets the job done. Miraculously, I am able to reliably print to it from Arch Linux, over wifi! I almost feel bad for Brother, I can't imagine they made more than a few dollars off of me, if that.
  • jacobr1 3y ago
    s/do/do not/ dry up
  • fomine3 3y ago
    BTW Brother is HQ'd in same prefecture (Aichi) as Toyota
    • jacobr1 3y ago
      Interesting - any other manufacturers in that area with checking out?
• jll29 3y ago
  Based on these practices, I cannot support HP any more (I was a fan of HP's UNIX workstations). If you plan to buy a printer, consider purchasing a laser printer from Kyocera, Brother or Lexmark.
• errantmind 3y ago
  It is really simple. Stop buying HP products and any others with shady business practices. For years Brother laser printers have been recommended on HN (except that one time they weren't). Just buy one and forget about your printer. Personally, I'm tired of reading about people being duped with printers.
• hk1337 3y ago
  It's still totally shady and BS but it sounds like you just cannot use the ink purchased with the subscription? Presumably, you can buy ink somewhere else and it will work? Yet another reason to go laser printer, I've had mine for 7+ years and have yet to replace the cartridge. I don't do a lot of printing at home but it's convenient when I need it.
  • gtop3 3y ago
    To put a quantity on it, a black toner cartridge might be rated for a few thousand sheets. They come in color options as well. The toner seems to be good for several years. The per-page price is significantly cheaper than ink. The printing speed is significantly higher than ink. The image quality is higher than ink.
  • Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
    > but it sounds like you just cannot use the ink purchased with the subscription? There's the rub. Instant Ink is not a subscription to ink. It's a subscription to printed pages, and HP merely provides the ink as a vehicle to deliver the printed pages. > Presumably, you can buy ink somewhere else and it will work? Yes. You can still buy normal ink cartridges that you will own outright and can use however you like.
• tinus_hn 3y ago
  It’s a very big turd and you stepped right into it. Look out next time!
• hpcjoe 3y ago
  I don't support this at all. This is printing as a service, with interesting consequences once you cancel the service even with remaining assets available to you. To get you to think about this some more, apply this to computing and storage as a service. The gotcha risk is far ... far higher than you think. Caveat cloud/aaS emptor.
• ldehaan 3y ago
  [dead]
• blitz 3y ago
  I’ve been a very happy Brothers customer for nearly two decades. We still have the same laser printer. Would highly recommend a laser printer over ink printers in most cases and would advocate for Brothers over any other brand printer at this point. The printer we have has never had any issues, including a situation where a bunch of boba tea spilled into the printer. Hosed it down, let it dry, and still works!
  • nerdponx 3y ago
    I can second this. I got a Brother HL-2270DW about 12 years ago and I have had no major complaints with it. Works great on Linux too.
    • hahamrfunnyguy 3y ago
      I had a similar (or the same) HL model. It lasted 10-12 years, not sure exactly what the failure mode was, but I think I paid $75 for it. Definitely paid more for drums and toner over the years and I never even bought 1st party drums and toner! I replaced it a few years ago with a more recent HL model that is almost identical, but has wifi. Really happy with the quality and reliability of both printers so far.
  • Aperocky 3y ago
    Same here, have a Brother printer that just printed and scanned. did nothing else and did not complain for years. Had the minimum features but that's exactly what I need it for. I guess HP think they have a monopoly somehow for them engage in stuff like this? Except they don't.
    • InitialLastName 3y ago
      They learned from watching Brother that you can't make any recurring revenue off your printer working without complaint for a decade.
      • Aperocky 3y ago
• PaulHoule 3y ago
  ... it's why I print with one of these https://epson.com/For-Work/Printers/Inkjet/EcoTank-Photo-ET-8550-All-in-One-Wide-format-Supertank-Printer/p/C11CJ21201 https://epson.com/For-Work/Printers/Inkjet/EcoTank-Photo-ET-...
  • myrandomcomment 3y ago
    Thanks for this link. I have been looking to replace a 10 year old Brother that started to fail and I was looking for something that supports 5G+WPA3. Could not find a simple data sheet for this but buried in the manual on their support site they list the specs. Going to compare them to the current Brother line up. Random: back in the day I had Epson dot matrix printers and they were a tank.
• Aulig 3y ago
  My father uses this subscription without any problems. He doesn't print a lot, so often times cartridges would dry up. Now with the subscription thats no problem anymore. Don't worry about running out, don't worry about dried cartridges, don't worry about missing one color, ... You get exactly what you pay for: printing x pages per month (and they even roll over to the next months)
• throwaway5959 3y ago
  Just stop buying HP products. There are other printer manufacturers. They’ve been doing this nonsense for over a decade. The word is out.
• denton-scratch 3y ago
  Why's it treated as being a "per page" subscription? Doesn't that favour subscribers that use the printer to produce full-page, full-colour images at maximum saturation? Doesn't it disadvantage people who want a page of text? I'd have thought it should be per-pint, or whatever. But then that would make it a purchase, rather than a subscription. I dunno, I wouldn't buy one of these contracts anyway; I despise HP printers.
  • Macha 3y ago
    > Why's it treated as being a "per page" subscription? Doesn't that favour subscribers that use the printer to produce full-page, full-colour images at maximum saturation? Doesn't it disadvantage people who want a page of text? Because the cost of page of text is so neglible in terms of ink that any limit that would let them upsell people printing text pages would be hit nearly instantly by people printing photos, and there's a lot more of the former group. It also lets them sell the potential that you'll print some colour photos at some point, when you won't.
  • charcircuit 3y ago
    >Why's it treated as being a "per page" subscription? Because that's the business model. Consumers care about the ability to print pages. They don't actually care about ink. As a consumer it's easy to see a subscription plan of 10 pages a month rather than 0.01 gallons of ink a month. The people that are disadvantaged are people who buy more pages than they use. This is offset by having unused prints rollover into the next month, but if you never print them then you have wasted that money.
  • detaro 3y ago
    > Why's it treated as being a "per page" subscription? Because that's easy to reason about. A page is a page, no worrying "ok, this document has 10 pages, but there are some big graphics, what percentage of the ink is that using". > Doesn't that favour subscribers that use the printer to produce full-page, full-colour images at maximum saturation? Doesn't it disadvantage people who want a page of text? Yes it does. Unsurprisingly, people in the first group are more likely to like and use this model, instead of buying ink cartridges.
• onewheeltom 3y ago
  You are paying for prints, not ink. Whether the cartridge contains ink or not is irrelevant. I am totally pleased with Instant Ink as that $55 printer rarely gives me trouble and I never have to buy ink. Support is pretty decent
  • Lev1a 3y ago
    > You are paying for prints, not ink > I never have to buy ink You are buying ink, since you're not just sending documents/images/etc. off for some company to print on their hardware with their ink and their paper, you're getting ink in vendor-locked cartridges which you can only print while within their arbitrary "no. of pages" metric. Also, you bought the printer, you buy the actual pages of paper, the subscription is called "Instant INK" and [1] literally says: > To enroll in HP Instant Ink you need to have an eligible printer, which tells us when you're low on ink or toner and orders it for you. (emphasis mine) Additionally their "plans" table in the FAQs of [1] makes clear that "unused" pages that you supposedly paid for with your subscription are limited in how many roll over each month, essentially invalidating a number of your "purchased" pages if you don't print as often as they would like you to. Scummy all the way down [1]: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/cv/instantink https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/cv/instantink
• egypturnash 3y ago
  HP: pushing Samuel Vimes' "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness[1] to the limit. Printer A is $500 up front, printer B is $100, sounds like a great deal until you do the math and realize that it's designed to make you pay a lot more than $400 more in cryptographically-signed consumables over its lifetime. I'm sure there is a very nice big bonus waiting for the HP employee who can figure out a way to make a printer that only works with Genuine Authorized HP Paper as well as Genuine authorized HP Ink, and pitch it in a way the consumers will accept. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
• onewheeltom 3y ago
  This has been posted to Hacker News before. The terms are clear. Pay X per month for Y prints (and I provide the paper). When I have a problem, I like not having to buy expensive ink carts and hoping it fixes my printer. All that is on HP. I just provide the paper. I’m using a $60 printer and am totally happy with it. I also have a Brother B&W laser, which is great when color is mot needed.
• thejanitor2180 3y ago
  [flagged]
• cranium 3y ago
  Cases like that arise when you want to force a certain monetization practice and it does not match perfectly with the reality. To make it more palatable, HP should offer a way to buy the remaining ink or ask to return (free of charge) the cartridge.
• flyinghamster 3y ago
  Some years back, my employer's HP all-in-one decided to expire the printhead. WTF? I could see throwing a warning if a clog were detected, but no, this was time-based. I'd never heard of any rational reason beyond clogs to replace a printhead, and if it's replaceable, it ought to be cleanable. The punch line: that POS wouldn't even let me scan with the "expired" printhead in place. HP: Never Again.
• syngrog66 3y ago
  The anti-pattern of IoT and their creepily Orwellian dependence "on the cloud" or the ability to "phone home" for "reasons" no one understands is a minor running gag in a game I've been building [SB]. Fragility of our civilization's life support systems and critical shared infrastructure, in general, is a theme. Because its a real issue today. And with the twin pressures of growing threats from climate and against democracy it is this very kind of stupidly nterdependent complexity which can act as a kind of Achilles heel PITA when enough of the dice all happen to roll a certain way, at once. We saw it happen due to COVID: the massive but also weird and counter-intuitive economic distortions. But I believe its likely to happen on a much larger scale in the future. Therefore we'd all be best served by choosing to use as many robust/redundant (and anti-fragile) tools as we can. Preppers once seemed crazy. I believe you'd almost have to be crazy to NOT be a prepper anymore. (Thus, my game: a mix of entertainment, but also education and hopefully political influence and a little bit more shifting of mindsets.) Example rules of thumb I help to teach: 1. Never own a hammer with a remote kill switch. 2. Never borrow/rent/lease a hammer. Own it, possess it, know where it is, control access to it. 3. Have two (or more) hammers. etc. --- [SB] - https://synystrongames.itch.io/slartboz https://synystrongames.itch.io/slartboz
• esotericsean 3y ago
  When I got married, my wife was subscribed to HP Instant Ink. Was one of the first things I cancelled. I couldn't believe that the ink didn't work afterwards. Made me want to reverse engineer it somehow, but wasn't really worth my time.
• jraph 3y ago
  This is the kind of stuff the Defective by Design campaign [1], which opposes DRMs, has been warning us about. This particular DRM is designed to waste ink, because this ink you are prevented using is not going to be used by anyone. This ink has cost resources and human time to be produced, and is just going to be discarded for the sake of a making a subscription-based business model work. Which fundamentally makes it faulty. We already produce too much waste, we don't need to produce some voluntarily. This kind of practice is shameful and should be boycotted. I don't care for arguments like "yeah you didn't pay for printing so it's only fair you are prevented from doing it". While I could agree with this, the end result is more waste. HP should be forced to allow any ink it sends to be used completely. [1] https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ https://www.defectivebydesign.org/
• kwhitefoot 3y ago
  If this was not obvious when you bought the ink then surely this simply a fraud on the part of HP. Do they do this everywhere in the world? Or just the US?
• friend_and_foe 3y ago
  At this point I won't even own a printer anymore. I'll just go to a print shop or office store type place, let them deal with this type of bullshit if they want. In a pinch I probably have a friend with a printer. How often do you need to print something anyway? Everyone has a document viewing device in their pocket (or more likely, in their hand) right now. Printing is obsolete, legacy tech that we really by and large don't need. I'll print some pictures to hang on the wall, I'll go to some place and pay the store a couple of bucks. Keeping your own printer these days is asinine unless you deal with governments daily, then you probably also need a fax machine.
  • yamtaddle 3y ago
    > How often do you need to print something anyway? Everyone has a document viewing device in their pocket (or more likely, in their hand) right now. Printing is obsolete, legacy tech that we really by and large don't need. Don't have kids, eh? ;-)
    • friend_and_foe 3y ago
      Yeah I do. They need printers for what reason?
      • yamtaddle 3y ago
        School stuff, coloring & activity sheets, miscellaneous uses in craft projects. Way cheaper than an iPad per kid, and some of them (strongly) prefer paper activities to their digital equivalents. A printer's easily one of the most-useful devices in our house, mostly for kids, but also for crafts that we parents do.
• cushpush 3y ago
  HP owns the ink even after they sell it to you? That sounds like... a lie
  • t0mas88 3y ago
    They didn't sell the ink to OP. With the subscription plan (which is entirely voluntary) You pay a small monthly fee for x number of pages per month. That fee is much lower than the cost of a cartridge of ink. The downside is that you cannot use the cartridge if you cancel. Because otherwise everyone would subscribe for 1 month, pay maybe 1/8th of the price of a cartridge and then keep printing with it for a long time after.
    • cushpush 3y ago
      I see, that's a very different, but contemporary, business model.
• LegitShady 3y ago
  stop buying hp, stop your friends and family from buying hp, stop your work from buying hp. Thats the only solution, and its long term. HP will do whatever they want, the only thing you can do is refuse to give HP any money for any reason and insist everyone you provide technical expertise for does the same.
• xutopia 3y ago
  I won't name any names or make any specific advert but I bought myself a printer with refillable cartridges and it's the cheapest and sanest printer experience I had in over 25 years.
• fomine3 3y ago
  I think "pay per printing even at home" is a good concept and it should be useful for some users, but it seems that their advertising is a bit failed.