This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
It is unfortunate that they keep trying to make a subscription out of something that does not have an ongoing infrastructure need at the company’s side.
On the other hand, I wonder how this could affect open source firmware to avoid e-waste. I read a thread about open source firmware for robot vacuums and there will surely be open source (if there is not already) for printers.
Paperless offices and WFH eating their lunch
I haven't purchased a new HP product since my Pavilion in 1998. I own an HP mini PC, but that was second hand. I'll never ever ever buy any of their products ever again.
If HP’s competitors are listening to his utterances, they should be all over this with ads saying “no subscriptions or other nonsense in our printers, and never will be”. They could grab much more of the market.
The sad thing is that I bet all the competitors have a room full of suits and ties who are hoping this works out for HP so they too can do it. I can almost guarantee this will turn into a "follow the leader" game.
Why isn't there any competition in the printer space except for Brother? Are printers really that hard to make?
Canon, Epson, Xerox?
Lexmark
The problem is profit.
They're selling you the printers at a pretty substantial loss and are making their money back on the consumables.
In a market where people aren't printing very much this turns out to be a lousy business plan.
School's going full digital and businesses going work from home has pushed everyone to stop using paper for everything.
To compete with the current printer manufacturers you'd need to be able to make a printer for about the same price, which means they too would have to make their money back on consumables but the money just isn't there.
I honestly think this is probably the beginning of the end for HP's line of consumer printers. It could also possibly be the end of their line of commercial multifunction printers. They're going to have to give up and walk away from those sectors. If it turns out you don't need to print for school and you don't need to put for work and you don't need to print passes for events, what are we printing for at this point to sign a document and send it back? The market's drying up and honestly no one new wants in
I'm really surprised that someone didn't jump into this space to basically make "the final printer you'll ever want to buy for home/office use".
Sell the printer to make a small profit, support refillable ink, and you'll basically capture 90% of the market. It's not a billion dollar idea, but for a small company it could make millions, even as a Kickstarter type thing between some hardware and device software folks.
So are there instructions out there to build your own printer with, say, a Raspberry Pi or a suitable equivalent?
Which is why all HP brand printers get filtered out of my search results when looking for a new printer. Won't even consider buying one at any price.
I got a cold call from a VAR that deals with HP servers. And I'm like no thank you, I won't work with HP. They asked why and I told them straight up their anti consumer practices.
Laser Printers for the win. The toner can feel expensive but so much better value than inkjet.
So, they basically want to be a copy shop? Didn't most of the dedicated ones go out of business?
Well it's the long term objective of everyone else to put HP out of business.
If possible we should take the signs off their buildings and turn them into works of modern art. We'll let IT departments the world over do the project.
I mean I get that they are established but what exactly is keeping their customers coming back to them? They make printers, there is no magic sauce, I’m sure they’re nice printers, but there are other companies, or someone could start a new printer company. I just can’t fathom why they think they can get away with treating their customers this way and not expect to lose them. Unless there is something I’m missing?
Nowadays, the only thing I find myself printing occasionally are return labels for Amazon RMA on my trusty old Samsung CLP laser printer (which sometime has a mind of its own and starts adding a single grayish streak on the second page onward at random location).
I have a second monochrome laser printer from Brother I purchased 2-3 years ago for a bargain lightning price of $70 thinking of replacing my old "dying" printer, however I exclusively use it to do occasional photocopies and I already have a bunch of TN660 toner for it.
Just waiting for the Samsung to run its course and finally die but it lives on challenging any thoughts I may have to send it to the eco-centre (recycling center in Québec). It is at least maybe 20 years old and the darn thing is stubbornly holding on 😆. At this point I feel like it may last another 20 years. It has indeed been well worth the $300 at the time.
Early on, I experienced so many issues with Lexmark, Epson and HP that I crossed off the companies forever.
Fortunately, I think I lucked out on my current 2 printers that will, hopefully, last me a few more decades.
I used to only recommend that any Brother printer would be better to friends and family, but I came accross information that newer brother printers started to have a chip in their ink/toner cartridges. I am unaware if it is for some nefarious purpose. Hopefully, they understand alienating customers will quickly dissolve all the good will they have accumulated.
