I was given a Brother printer that had spent 10+ years in a damp cellar. I already had one but this one was A3 and that could be ha’dy. Unfortunately it was an ink jet.
So, of course, I had to buy cartridges as the printer was screaming bloody murder. Alas, the whole feeding circuit and the printing head were clogged beyond salvage (the manual insists that it’s not to be left unplugged for extended periods).
But that’s not the point of the story. The whole (compatible) set of four cartridges was something like 17€. Also the scanner still worked just fine.
Looked like a great machine, probably not worth it to fix (new one is about 450€).
My mom bought a cheap HP printer/scanner several years ago and subscribed to their “instant ink” subscription which was actually surprisingly cheap (like $3/mo) but once the printer stopped reliably connecting to the internet and nobody could print wirelessly anymore with it, she canceled the subscription and HP DISABLED ALL OF THE INK CARTRIDGES. The cartridges themselves have wifi connections so HP can automatically send you new ink when they get low. What a scam.
It’s crazy how the people and govt have let this go on for so long. This has been a known issue with consumer grade printers for a long time now. I remember my parents bitching about ink costs when I was in grade school. Now these companies have raced to the bottom and are locking them down.
Personally, I have found myself to print less than a dozen pages per year. Usually it’s some government office that wants hard copy. For every instance, I just used my local Office Depot to handle all of my printing needs. So glad I don’t have to deal with printer bs
Pine64, the company that has made such excellent projects as the PinePhone, PineBook, and PineTime(open source hardware and software smartphone, laptop and smart watch), has stated that one of their dream projects would be an open source, hackable printer. There’s obviously a ton of logistics though and it will likely never materialize unless they really start making big bucks.
The fact that HP didn’t even say anything makes it look less like profiteering and more like spite. Idiots. I’m actually in the market for a printer and from what I can tell, in order to get something that won’t stiff me in some way I have to get one which is really old. And not made by HP.
Thanks to DMCA, circumventing this protection and sharing it with people is illegal.
Honestly hasn’t stopped people in the past but I suspect it hasn’t been cracked because of how it connects to an external server to verify. Probably need to patch the firmware entirely
Which is fine until Grandma wants to print out all the selfies and other photos our Grand kids send her. Then, that black and white anything won’t cut it. And I can’t afford a photo quality laser printer…
There nearest grocery store that might offer that kind of service would be at least a 200 mile round trip. And while we are old enough to remember sending real film to film labs for developing and then waiting weeks to get something back, she’s not very interested in doing so anymore. To her the cost is not worth the inconvenience of waiting anymore.
And frankly, some arguments are not worth having. In marriage, you need to pick your fights.
I’ve owned a HL-3070cw for a decade (I think, close to if not) - I’ve changed the toner carts 4 times, it’s printed high res color daily for pennies. Shit just works, and quality isn’t bad at all. Works from any device on the network - phones tablets desktops laptops - practically zero network admin/setup, it just fucking works for everyone. Cannot recommend enough.
I’m with the others recommending Brother. They aren’t perfect, but they’re the least bad.
Running about a 10 year old MFC 9349 CDW here, only changed the black toner so far. Used a cartridge reset truck I found on YouTube to get more life out of the original black before that.
I’ve been around in IT long enough… The emails went to someone who has left or someone set auto delete “on these annoying spam emails!”.
Not to make it right or better, hp sucks donkey balls, but I don’t believe the would’ve been zero contact. If you buy a subscription printer and stop paying for a subscription… That’s on you.
I’m not glad that I keep seeing it. They were using managed printing i.e. pay-per-page. HP may make garbage and overcharge for ink, but I’m sick of people tapping the up arrow on low effort posts like this.
I will happily upvote anything that rags on HP printers, I don’t care how low effort it is. In fact, I would hate to think someone spent actual effort on anything HP related.
HP printers have been kicking puppies and insulting your mother for well over 20 years. Wait, they haven’t? Well, after a certain point a company has burned so much good will by making marginal printers, less-than marginal drivers and artificially differentiating inks and toners to such a degree it’s hard to see it as anything other than profiteering… pant pant …that nobody cares if it’s unfair or inaccurate.
Don’t buy HP. Think of the puppies. Think of your mother, for God’s sake!
I just don’t see the point in spreading misinformation. I have had almost entirely bad experiences with HP, but that doesn’t mean I go around spreading lies.
The point in shitting on HP is to shit on HP. Not sure what other point you’re looking for. Are you concerned that people are going to start feeling sympathetic?
No, i just don’t want to see misinformation period. The reason the printer wasn’t working is because they were on a managed printing plan, not because HP was trying to pull one over on them.
Never use a smart printer. If this is your only choice, make sure this dorker has no internet connection. If it does make any sudden movements, use the 9mm.
I got an old… Ricoh? machine from some company sellout with a heck of a lot of toners. Was €500 but I’ll never need to buy anything again for the next 3 decades.
I did an internship at an OEM that was the dying most of the revenue came from government make work money for economic development and selling machines to the 3rd world because they were too dangerous for first world.
Our high end products did this remote deactivation thing. Hated it at the time still hate it today.
Yeah, he has a… questionable history, what with the “boogaloo boys” memes, but he stopped engaging with that pretty quickly around the time it became associated with Actual Nazis instead of semi-ironic government-hating libertarians.
That is frustrating for sure, but they prob should have read their agreement when they purchased whatever subscription they signed up for. It’s like complaining that T-Mobile has locked their subscription-discounted phone despite them not paying the bill.
Yeah they should really invent a printer with a tiny internet connected screen on the front that could convey this type of message about a person’s account and the nature of the problem.
It isn’t like that at all. T-Mobile would’ve given you a better deal for taking a contract such as that, HP just decided they didn’t want you to even THINK about purchasing ink or something from anyone else but them. It’d be more like if T-Mobile sold you a phone that you paid full price for, and then decided they’d remotely lock your phone and wipe it if you tried to buy a charging cable from anywhere but their store.
This is straight malicious anti-consumer bullshit, and it is basically rapist behavior. It’s disgusting.
If you buy a printer that has it already included, then you’re either getting a discounted printer or “discounted” ink for a subscription period. They make it clear that it is a subscription service when you do so. They all sell printers that are not subscription-based. I’m guessing you can still sign up for their subscription-based service, and you should read the fine print about being able to cancel or what happens if you don’t pay.
I absolutely hate HP by the way. They do things like include spyware in their “drivers” that are pushed through Windows Update. However, in this case, a simple Twitter screenshot doesn’t accurately capture the full story. If you want to provide some more context, then by all means feel free to do so.
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