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HP discontinues online-only LaserJet printers in response to backlash
- Freak_NL 2y agoWith no apparent way of unlocking these devices promised or foreshown in the article, I wonder how long those e-types already sold with the on-line requirement will keep working. Pretty soon the 'e' at the end of the model number will be short for 'e-waste'.
- simondanerd 2y agoI have an HP Deskjet 2750e, tied to my HP+ account that I started to setup and canceled after getting the printer to a working state. It's now attached via USB to a RPI running CUPS. Now I have a printer that automatically pops up on my network (across OS's!) and works every time. I bought the refurbished Walmart branded ink for it too. Works great
- stephenitis 2y agoCan you write out acronyms RPI and CUPS
- simondanerd 2y agoRPI - Raspberry Pi (https://www.raspberrypi.com https://www.raspberrypi.com) CUPS - no longer an acronym, but used to be Common Unix Printing System. (https://www.cups.org/ https://www.cups.org/)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- choudharism 2y agoI dream of the day we can come up with good OSS printer firmware as a society. I know it has been discussed to death (as to why it can't happen), but the heart wants what the heart wants.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y agoFWIW, the need for printing has been limited now so the need to engage with some of those awful practices is also minimized. Still, that was the first time I saw a mention of 'OSS printer can't happen and here is why'. Could you elaborate or give me a link to previous discussions on it? It sounds interesting.
- redleader55 2y agoOne of the links: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35933652 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35933652
- account42 2y ago> FWIW, the need for printing has been limited now so the need to engage with some of those awful practices is also minimized. Declining printer use also contributes to these practices though as existing companies desperately try to keep quarterly numbers up.
- nehal3m 2y agoI'm probably super biased because I work in a relatively modern office that produces relatively modern tech, but we barely ever use paper for anything anymore. The same goes for my home office use; I moved a few months ago and left my printer behind. With the advent of QR code tickets and parcel barcodes and iOS's Continuity scanning features I just don't see the point of having a space-, paper- and toner-eating monster on my desk anymore. I used to administer about 12 leased Toshiba reproduction units and that has planted a deep seated hatred for printers. Is the public at large wise to avoiding these fuckers like the plague, or am I an outlier?
- izacus 2y agoI don't understand why is your post relevant to the topic at hand? I assume you're not quite a target market for printers then? Or is it a question because you can't imagine anyone still using paper in the world?
- nehal3m 2y agoIn the world is a bit large in scope, I’m trying to gauge whether printing in the HN audience is on the decline I imagine it to be.
- aflag 2y agoI like printing papers and some other material. I know there's e-ink, but they are just worse than pen and paper. I also like printing train tickets so I don't need to stress out about my phone battery. Occasionally I have to mail the government something too. I never used paper for anything else, so from my point of view, it's not on the decline. But just steady and stable.
- gray_-_wolf 2y agoI prefer reading papers on paper, with fountain pen to make notes. It is easier for me to focus on compared to electronics devices (well, I am answering on HN instead of doing things I should be doing)...
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- ogou 2y agoI found one these all-in-one units out on sidewalk and thought I had scored a cool freebie. It was nearly new. Now I know why they threw it away. Total garbage and bricked without that HP+ subscription. Can't use the scanner because the ink is too low. The worst part is that I couldn't even reset the printer to use a new subscription! It was tied to the previous owner at a hardware level and support said I had to contact them to release their account, even though it was no longer active. The HP support forums are full of angry people trying to get away from these units. Printers are still needed, btw. Maybe not in the USA, but Germany requires all kinds of paper documentation to be mailed. Many other countries as well.
- qiine 2y ago"bricked without that HP+ subscription. Can't use the scanner because the ink is too low. The worst part is that I couldn't even reset the printer to use a new subscription! It was tied to the previous owner at a hardware level and support said I had to contact them to release their account, even though it was no longer active." Nice everything is wrong beyond redemption, basically toxic eWaste that somehow manage to also waste your time as an added bonus... job well done !
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- 4gotunameagain 2y agoYour opinions about these devices are valid, but I highly doubt that any other country is so stuck to physical mail as is Germany. To the point that I wonder how it is still functioning. Only one country away: Denmark. You are provided with a state issued secure email address for all official communication. No paper. Minimal environmental impact. No looking through the 2013 brief to find a paper from the finanzamt.
- ahartmetz 2y ago> To the point I wonder how it is still functioning. It's a symptom of other dysfunction alright, but mail did and does work, so the superficial answer is: same as it always did? When I read about banking in the US involving checks and bills, I don't say "the system is collapsing", it's just... an aspect that sucks.
- RedShift1 2y agoDid the people that bought these things expect something else?
- mindracer 2y agoI doubt the average consumer would know how terrible the HP printer experience is until they’ve bought one
- RedShift1 2y agoOk but is it terrible because the service was bad (frequently offline, toner would not be delivered on time, too slow, etc...) or because they changed their minds about a subscription and didn't want to pay anymore, and didn't realize the printer would stop working all together without it (most likely having forgotten this fact a year after purchase)?
- elp 2y agoThat's exactly what happened. My old home HP printer is about 16 years old and still rock solid. If I didn't know any better I would be recommending the brand to everyone I know. Not everyone is as depressingly online as the HN community.
- kristopolous 2y agoIt's like a group of McKinsey consultants came in, saw the stellar reputation of HP and then decided to suck it dry and make it a worthless husk. It's like clear-cutting and strip mining a brand
- lawn 2y agoIt's just a damn printer. How could normal people expect that they would be sold such utter garbage? Especially since older printers have worked just fine. The only way to expect this is you've experienced it yourself or if you've followed news sites like HN where techies complain about shit like this.
- scandox 2y agoI have a HP LaserJet 4050TN released in 1999. Still printing away. Zero scamology. Imagine all the effort they've made since then to make their products terrible.
- mrweasel 2y agoWhat I find extremely annoying is that no one is charge saw this coming. How stupid do you need to be to release an online-only subscription laser printer? Somewhere in the HP hierarchy reality is removed. I feel like at least one of the lower level people saw this coming. Somewhere in the management layers this became a good idea, an idea completely removed from reality. The only logic that makes sense is that you have a segment of users that doesn't need to print much, so rather than doing a large upfront purchase, they basically rent a printer, but where is the break even for HP, where is the break even for the customer? When you cancel your subscription does the printer then go back to HP for refurbishment so that another customer can rent it? I doubt it, it becomes e-waste. The article even says: "To provide our customers with an exceptional printing experience in all office environments, we will no longer offer LaserJet series products with HP+. " So the HP+ didn't provide exceptional printing experiences? I could understand the reasoning that "Some customers purchased an HP product that would not work in their environment, so we're now more clearly communicating the limitations of HP+", but no, they are cancelling it entirely, so it's not about those office environments where always online didn't work. This is an entirely predictably failure of a product, except HP management wasn't smart enough to realise it, because they f-ing priorities are not their customers.
- throw092309 2y ago[flagged]
- voltagex_ 2y agoWould you like to elaborate somewhat? What other countries? What problem?
- throw092309 2y agoI am talking about diversity hiring obviously.
- voltagex_ 2y ago
- jmartin2683 2y agoThis is the future that they warned us about.
- elAhmo 2y agoHP is constantly confirming the stance I have of never buying HP devices in the future. This probably wasn't their aim, but in the past decade I could only hear negative sentiment about them, and reading stories like this - it doesn't seem without reason.
- JansjoFromIkea 2y agoNot that happy about Instant Ink being discountinued; was paying like £12 a year for ink, printed infrequently enough that I could print super high res photos fairly regularly too (think I get 10 pages a month that could roll over to a max of 30)
- WmWsjA6B29B4nfk 2y agoThis. Also not having to worry about ink drying out or being lost due to automatic printhead cleaning during long periods of non-printing, or not having to worry about anything ink-related at all and automatically getting a new cartridge in the mail is extremely convenient. That said, I heard multiple stories about people buying non-online-only printers, activating Instant Ink without properly understanding what are they signing up for, then canceling and complaining they can't use the cartridge they "paid" for. So if Instant Ink is really dead it's probably a victim of shitty overly-aggressive HP marketing.
- JansjoFromIkea 2y agoI reckon it's probably just been a bit of a financial flop; it seemed to hinge on some notion that people would print a lot more once they were viewing it as 10p per page rather than £25 per cartridge but no one wants to have a pile of printed crap. I'm sure there's loads of people on those £1 plans who don't print for months and HP just have to keep sending out new cartridges after leaving the printer unplugged for months. In the past they were probably getting £30+ out of those people for the two cartridges once a year. I'll be ditching the printer once I'm expected to pay more anyway.
- dtx1 2y agoIt's quite a thing to behold that the only technological advancement in printing technology in the last decade has been the erosion of ownership to the point of absurdity. In a fair world, this decades long clownshow should have caused the mother of all anti trust lawsuits, yet here we are.
- constantcrying 2y agoDealing with an HP printer easily was the worst tech experience I have had in my life. I don't understand how "non-tech" people even deal with this. The process was so unimaginably convoluted, requiring third party software, new accounts a very bad mobile app, a tiny display with terrible delays on the printer and so much more. This has to be another peak though and something where I think the EU could reasonably step in. Selling devices so utterly broken and ridiculous to set up and maintain should not be acceptable.
- neilv 2y ago> In any case, it's important to clarify that this discontinuation of HP printers will only impact HP LaserJet printers that have an "e" added to the end of their model name to denote the alternative business model. Nice of them to make it easy to know which models to avoid (on the new-old-stock, used, and curb markets). Mnemonic: "'e' for 'ewww...'" As much as I'm cautious of Fiorina-and-later HP, and as much as I wouldn't connect an HP printer to the Internet nor use HP supplied drivers (bricking risk, security unknowns, mixed trustworthiness)... I still like LaserJets as reliable workhorse printers. Maybe HP will re-emphasize trustworthiness, so that future generations can love the LaserJet and future HP product lines in the same tradition.
- botanical 2y agoI urge everyone to permanently boycott HP. In the past, I would only buy their products, from laptops to printers; everything develops a critical problem that cannot be fixed. They look to milk the customer. HP are a terrible company and their products are of poor quality.
- jqpabc123 2y agoHP and Boeing --- two great American companies who shot themselves in the foot by chasing short sighted greed.
- DeathArrow 2y agoWhat's next? Online only toilet and kitchen sink with subscription?
- coldcode 2y agoI believe there is an internet-enabled toothbrush, so why not? I refuse to buy a new TV as they are all internet-connected and ad-ready. There are a few offline ones or simple displays, but not so easy to find any more.
- reginald78 2y agoSoon they'll all come with prepaid 5G cell modems to prevent you from just not connecting them to the internet.
- account42 2y agoWhile the ad situation with modern TVs is not something I want to defend, most of them can still be used as offline displays if you forego the smart features and simply feed them HDMI video and audio data without ever granting the TV an online connection. Unfortunately offline displays tend to either be prohibitively expensive (becuase they are sold as business displays) or lag behind in the technology used.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- anArbitraryOne 2y agoThey should discontinue all of their printers because all of the ones I've had experience with in the past 20 years have sucked