No fines, just allow the customer to send back the devices and get a full refund plus all costs covered by the manufacturer...it could be so easy.
Give back the HP and buy a Brother....that would be called a self regulating Market.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mf...
Wh-what? Yes fines! ABSOLUTELY yes fines! The punishment should be blunt, uniform, and intimidating! This is absolutely a situation for fines!
To cover refund is a much bigger "fine" and the money flows directly back to those who suffered, that's not the case with fines, and fines are mostly small change for big-corps.
Just extend the rights of Customers and everything could be fine.
Only government regulations can keep capitalism in check, maybe an unpopular opinion on HN but it hurts startups too because the market is not penetrable for competition.
The market solution doesn't have to be your desired solution. Here it seems that some people doesn't care HP practices, so market provides shitty HP practices. They have easy options (bare minimum: don't buy HP), but they actively avoid them, so the market allows and encourages it.
That's what i mean, a customer is allowed to return a device/car/whatever and get fully refunded if the initial function of a device changes with no technical advantage for the customer.
Fines brings the Customer nothing (aka you don't get your money back) and is mostly small change for the company, no need to change anything...but paying full refunds for let's say a 4yo device, that could hurt allot.
But oh my. The quality of the printing is terrible.
Now Brothers MFC-3750 has gone evil with DRM-like ink cartridge.
Probably the only time that I cannot wait to buy a foreign knockoff instead; perhaps China can step up ... like now?
https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mf...
In the settings, there's a way to shutoff automatic updates, which I set. But I don't trust post-Corina HP at all and I wanted to firewall it from the internet.
It turns out my D-Link router is vastly more annoying than my printer. Unclear setting menus, no help or manual, and settings that appear to work will block every computer from the internet when the router is reset.
I hate the state of modern consumer electronics.
So you also want to make sure you're using a generic driver and not the current "hp smart" bs drivers they've been pushing for several years. Possibly tough to do on a new enough printer, maybe no generic driver available especially for scanning unless you're using linux.
Amazingly they still offered old-style drivers for my M281fdw for my wife's win10 machine, which cleared up a problem where the printer would crash and reboot every time she sent a print job, meanwhile I had no problem from linux. Ripped out all the hp smart drivers and put in the basic ones and it never did it again, over 2 years so far. But I have to assume that they just don't even offer classic style drivers for new models by now.
Ironically this new printer works great with my 20 year old SGI Fuel (which I lovingly keep), while I cant figure out how to make it work with my Plus4 (which Im keeping).
I actually really like this printer. Prints fast, great detailed settings available on a little webserver, it seems every single old printer protocol is supported. All for less than $400. Its the first HP product Ive enjoyed since I got my first CD burner in '99.
I just really distrust anything Corina has touched.
Or has this changed?
2. I don't trust an HP printer to, on occasion, try DHCP or change a setting (or look at an open wifi network but that wouldnt be the routers fault) to get an update.
These days they have fewer enterprise costumers so they need to be more careful on how they introduce it.
A lot of arts and crafts and decorations become real hard without a printer,and monochrome laser is basically useless for home use cases(Unless you actually like paper for documents)
Surprised Xiaomi hasn’t disrupted that industry yet.
Probably my biggest use case is printing off maps for hiking trips.
https://www.gapintelligence.com/blog/home-printers-stay-esse...
Since HN tends to be incredibly pedantic: "irrelevant" here is obviously not literal.
Speaking as someone who still occasionally needs a print-out and will not ever see that need go away unless some kind of amazing e-ink technology becomes the norm.
We, as dissminators should tell every consumer not to buy their crap. "It's a trap!"
I think perhaps what's getting lost here is that in the consumer space printers are being sold on a razor and blade model. The printers themselves are loss leaders. Your $100 laser printer definitely costs more than the sale price to manufacture. Eons ago Kodak tried to buck the trend with cheap consumables and a printer more or less sold at cost. Kodak bailed after a whole five years. Consumers care more about up front costs than they do about the cost of consumables – as it turns out most people are terrible about long term strategizing.
HP need an update capability or everyone would be outraged if they couldn’t patch CVE.
It’s basically free for HP to have this capability to block 3rd party ink. But it comes with a responsibility to not be a jerk, which they seem to have failed at.
You are only considering HP firmware update. But even in that there will be a huge cost for implementing, testing and deploying this new functionality.
Lexmark has historically always taken things too far on the legal side and really ruined the ability for printer companies to "protect" their toner/ink sales from 3rd parties. One recent way Lexmark has taken this too far is: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1189_ebfj.pdf
That's not the first time Lexmark has ended up in front of the US Supreme Court for similar shenanigans. I don't believe they've ever had good luck when cases have made it to higher courts.
It's not easy to make a laser printer from scratch.
And now you want a business model based on charging commodity costs for both the hardware and consumables. Which leaves essentially $0 for development costs, which are substantial.
I was a big advocate of Brother printers, but the last one I bought in 2020 has been plagued with paper jams and the cyan ink leeched into the yellow internal tank. So I now have a tabloid format scanner + B&W printer. I almost dread shopping for a printer because I feel like I'm entering into an abusive relationship with a loan shark (really, $75 for ink for the $200 printer?... or cheap toner! yeah! Oh, the developer unit costs more than the printer... Boo.)
Get a black and white Brother laser. They just work. Leave the inkjet printers to the photographers who print giant glossy colour photos every day.
In 1999 I was using a £150 canon colour inket with 360x360 resolution. Lasted ten years with fake ink at £20 a year. Now I am using a £150 canon megatank with 1200x4800 resolution, scan,copy,wifi and print plus an official bottle of ink costs £10 and lasts 5000 pages. Downside, I doubt the modern build quality will last 10 years but fingers crossed.
So adjusted for inflation my printer is much better. But having been been tantalised by £50 allinones for 15 years if you can just get past the expensive cartridge chips I agree it doesn't feel like it...
I will happily face any resulting criminal charges, because I am pretty sure there would be enough sympathy here alone to raise bail and legal fees.
If they want to behave like criminals, then they should expect tit-for-tat retaliation.
The average cost per year of ink would be shown and whether aftermarket cartridges are accepted.
The average person buys because they see the initial cheap cost. It is a bait and switch that is terrible for the environment.
Even worse, HP runs green washing ads on YouTube about printing trees.
Years ago, I switched over to Brother laserjets that accept aftermarket cartridges. Never worry about printing costs.
[1] https://twitter.com/search?q=printer+from%3AFrameworkPuter
I dont think it will survive the next time I have to move house, the plastic casing is cracking and falling off at this point the thing has been through so much. They DEFINITELY don't make em like they used it.
I'll probably stop printing things all together for the rest of my life the day that dell gives up the ghost. Its just not worth it
