Tell HN: HP printers force you into agreement
The HP Smart App forces you to agree to use only their ink before you can use their app. That shouldn't be a big deal since modern HP printers work fine out of the box without a driver.
However, after you've printed a bunch of pages, they stop working and display the error message "Printer setup incomplete. Your HP+ printer must be set up using the HP Smart app. Visit 123.hp.com to download the app and complete the guided setup. Any pages you have printed were intended for setup and have been exhausted."
Conveniently, this usually doesn't happen until it's too late to return the printer.
304 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 260 ms ] threadhttps://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/hp-to-compensate-print...
"Customers of HP PPS Australia Pty Ltd (HP) who bought certain models of HP printers without being informed non-HP ink cartridges may not work in them could be eligible for compensation, the ACCC announced today."
"HP has given the ACCC a court-enforceable undertaking to compensate customers who were unable to use non-HP ink cartridges due to an undisclosed technology in their printers."
...
"HP has undertaken to compensate consumers $50 who were prevented from using a non-HP cartridge."
"HP has since made available an automatic firmware update for download which removes the DSF from certain inkjet printer models and allows customers to use non-HP cartridges."
"The undertaking is available at HP PPS Australia Pty Ltd ."
https://www.accc.gov.au/public-registers/undertakings-regist...
"Details of how to claim compensation are on the HP website."
"Consumers can also contact HP via 1800 625 236 for more information."
Would it be possible to get hands on this firmware update and install it outside of Australia too?
https://support.hp.com/hr-en/product/hp-officejet-pro-6830-e...
https://www.euroconsumers.org/activities/hp-and-euroconsumer...
https://assets.ctfassets.net/iapmw8ie3ije/KB59keIaRiPTdYg71E...
https://a.co/d/1H1aI10
The alternative dw printer is not marked as such but is over twice as expensive.
I hate printers as much as the next person but in this case it's pretty clear what folks are getting into.
However I'm seeing that HP wants to slowly transition to only the e line. If that happens, I'll be pretty incensed.
It's nice to see the notice displayed prominently on Amazon. I guess this is one time my aversion to Amazon burned me.
I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who feel the same way. It's like the opposite of the halo effect.
Maybe I'm wrong, since I have nothing to go by besides a gut feeling mixed with assumptions and a sprinkling of common sense, so I would love a source.
The only scenario I can think of which makes sense to me is that making printers is a patent minefield, making it difficult/impossible for a competitor to come in and disrupt anything (plus it's not a very attractive industry anyways). There's probably also a lot of anti-competitive stuff going on too, like supplier contracts that prohibit working with other printer companies, etc.
Sure, you'll have some smarter customers who made their research and picked you, but it will probably not enough of a margin to compensate against a giant like HP.
You then have two printers, one selling for a lot more than the other but having all this ink shenanigans… and consumers will buy the ink shenanigans every time, because the sticker price is all that matters.
There needs to be open source firmware for 2D printers too, like there have already been plenty developed for 3D ones. No need to reinvent the whole thing, but just replace the electronics. Presumably the printhead/cartridge interface is still much the same and they haven't gone to the effort of obfuscating/encrypting that yet... https://spritesmods.com/?art=magicbrush
It's unfortunate that printers turned from being based on standard protocols that were documented in the manual they came with (ASCII, ESC/P2, PCL, PostScript, etc.) to these proprietary closed systems. None of the printer manufacturers, including HP, used to be like this.
The subsidized models were always like this. I used to sell this stuff - the HP/Canon/Epson consumer devices were always subsidized by ink sales and sold below margin. The business devices were always different. I still have a LaserJet 6MP that I bought when I was a retail employee of a computer store in 1997 off the floor. The thing is a tank - it also cost $700 1998 dollars. HP still makes similar devices at similar price points.
For my kids, I have a little MFP with instant ink - total cost of $150 for the printer + $180 in ink over 3 years. It’s a good value. Our need for color doesn’t justify a Epson ink tank printer or HP commercial inkjet.
> standard protocols
You still find printers that support standard protocols, such as IPP (internet printing protocol), that work fine without proprietary drivers with CUPS on Linux. You just have to spend a little more money and avoid consumer stuff, that is Inkjet printers, and go for network laser printers meant to be used in small offices. B/W ones aren't too much expensive, and you can find ones used for not a lot of money, or even free, since companies throw them out, that still work.
I've had good luck in the past, as many have, with Brother's simple laser printers, but was very surprised at the ease of setup on Linux of a new Brother multi-function all-in-one inkjet printer/scanner combo thing: even the scanner worked over the network without a fuss. Night and day compared to my recollections of working with hpijs, hplip, foomatic, even poking around for Brother laser drivers sometimes for ones that didn't talk PCL.
But then you have things like this where there's a pointless app forced into the mix to add more friction to that improved story... just because.
It is rare to find a printer these days which doesn't support IPP, even el cheapo inkjet ones. It is required to print from iOS.
PCL and Postscript are also proprietary and owned by a single vendor.
No, because printers are likely sold below cost, with the profit intended to be recouped through ink sales.
If we want open, well-supported printers, we're going to pay a lot more for the hardware.
They also care about, but won't know/weigh at purchase time: (4) longevity and (5) cheap ink.
I'd hazard if you told customers they could have all the above, but had to install and run a rootkit driver... you'd still have a very successful product on your hands. As long as the driver install was easy enough.
Case in point:
Subscription supported. Requires internet, app + account, first party toner. Costs $120 at time of writing, with a bonus 6 month supply of toner free. https://smile.amazon.com/HP-LaserJet-M234dwe-Wireless-6GW99E...
Equivalent hardware. No internet or account required. (Unclear on first party toner req.) Costs $150 more. https://smile.amazon.com/HP-LaserJet-M234dwe-Wireless-6GW99E...
I wouldn’t call their marketing “clear”, which inevitably leads most consumers to ask “why would I pay more for the same thing?”, but it’s also unfair to say that HP is turning their entire product line into a bait-and-switch gambit (which is the general subtext of this whole conversation).
HP is running a business. Ink and toner are great long-term revenue streams, but they aren’t guaranteed. So HP sells one SKU that (probably) covers the cost of production, and hopes that they get some fraction of that long tail (if only in brand familiarity/loyalty), and because the printer market is so driven by negative margin hardware, they have a second SKU for a subsidized printer with an implicit contract, guaranteeing ink revenues for longer.
Could they do a better job of clarifying the options? Absolutely.
Is what they’re doing “shady”, “dirty”, or borderline illegal? Probably not.
Could a lot of this confusion be cleared up by just saying it’s a subsidized purchase? I expect you’d have to ask the wireless telcos about that…
I returned a cartridge at Staples, a few years ago. I think they offered $1-2, not much, but happy they took it. Also try Office Depot.
(There's an easily-found way to reset toner counts, for example, and get anther 25-50% more pages from a cartridge. Although I no longer use it as running out of toner mid-job is a hassle. The toner is cheap enough, and long-lasting enough, that I happily set-and-forget with their auto-order system.)
The only thing that's bothered me about them is they're making it harder and harder to figure out how to return toner cartridges for recycling.
The other one (with the bigger Pagewides at least): they had a problem with the formulation of the black ink, where the constituents would separate over time. They changed the formulation and that formulation doesn't dry properly on their own photo paper. I wanted optimal quality photos, so I went through the specific calibration function for the HP Advanced photo paper. Because of the way the machine shuffles the page back and forth in the machine to perform the calibration, all the black was smudged and the calibration would fail every time. When HP support eventually realized I had a point, they told me calibration on HP Advanced photo paper is "not supported." I bet they remove it as an option in later firmware, if they haven't already. I have never dealt with a more user-hostile company than HP.
At this point I print so infrequently that going to the print shop for $1 is a more sound decision than spending $100 on a printer i use a handful of times a year.
Also coloring pages for kids.
If I print the label myself I can just leave it in a box in the store without waiting in line, or better yet, give it to the delivery man next time he comes around.
Seems like a small inconsequential, or rare benefit. But with three kids the delivery guy is by our house every other day
Oh and return labels for packages.
My wife makes the Christmas cards every year carving a linoleum block, ink-roller, that sort of thing. She also used the laser printer to transfer a design.
Papercraft....
Occasionally a recipe though to add to my recipe book, ha ha.
Main use is that I write music scores which I print (reading them off a tablet won't do). This would be several times a week.
Weekly or so (sometimes more, sometimes less) I print tickets (those with bar codes or QR codes) for concerts and the like. I don't want to rely on a phone for that, my normal phone isn't actually online when I'm not in wifi range and it's cumbersome to drag up a PDF on it. Way easier to bring out a piece of paper from my pocket. And reliable. And yes, boarding passes for flights as well. Reliability is even more important there..
EditAdd: And labels for post packages. It's cheaper to prepare that online and print the label myself, then bring the package to the post office where they'll clamp a transparent plastic sheet over it. If they have to do the label at the post office it'll cost more. It's because when I enter the address etc. online then it'll go directly into their database, and that's why it's more expensive if the post office has to enter it.
My wife has a small class for which she needs to print learning material she's made for her pupils, each time. She also occasionally need to make color prints, and for that we use an HP bought years ago (and deliberately never given Internet access). For the other mentioned stuff we use a b/w laser printer.
None of the above is really feasible for printing at a print shop, would have to drive ten minutes and (these days) go through a toll booth as well. In fact I'm very close to buying another b/w laser printer so that I don't have to go upstairs to get my printouts - I would like to have one real close. Was looking into a low-cost (and small) Brother laser printer for that - now I see they're into shenanigans as well, will have to check carefully before I go further.
So, unlike some other commenters here, I find having a printer (or several) at home is still a must for me. I use print shops only for printing photos (at dedicated photo shops).
We'll see how long it goes before the fuser carks it, but so far it's been pretty cost effective, considering the thing itself was £200.
But I think making a simple inkjet printhead is still beyond a hobbyists effort. Laser printer or dot matrix likewise.
I did see posts about HL-L3290CDW and MFC-L8900CDW with the same No Toner symptom but it wasn't clear they ever had firmware updates.
From what I can tell from your link, the OP there had a HL3070CN. It doesn't appear that he updated the firmware or ran into any No Toner errors. He was sharing reports about the 3750. My similar HL3040CW takes 3rd party cartridges (orig firmware).
My vibe is Brother is test-fouling the water to see how it goes. For my part, I'll research how block firmware updates (not all models have an auto update to disable, IP & url blocking might block driver downloads. We shall see).
Just don't give a default router to it. Can't update if can't go out.
update[.]brother[.]co[.]jp -> I blocked this domain and my printer is unable to query for updates. I can still download binaries from Brother's website.
firmverup[.].brother[.]co[.]jp & update-akamai[.]brother[.]co[.]jp Other domains found by people sniffing their printer firmware updates.
"The printers keep track of every page that goes through it whether or not you use any consumables and forces you to replace the toners the belt the drum and the fuser regardless of the actual condition of these parts."
And many other reports.
Note: I have a Brother monochrome laser that is great, but it seems like there are no printer companies left standing that I would buy a printer from now.
My experience is that a, sometimes complicated, series of button presses for a specific amount of times resets the counter and it continues printing like usual. For the model I have the reset procedure is just holding the power button while turning it on for a specific number of seconds.
[1] https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/maxify-gx7020
[2] https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/imageprograf-pro-1000
It does add watermarking (feels like USSR, where KGB took fingerprints of all typewriters), which is despicable, but I think all modern printers do that.
https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-d...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code
I get stuff printed at the local library now. Yeah, the per-page costs are relatively high, but I'm not amortising the cost of a printer, I don't have to worry about any kind of ink/toner/printhead/other mechanical issues, and any "profit" that's being made goes towards my local library - which I'm totally fine with.
(Jets clog, hard to unclog)
That said, I find business grade HP laser printers superior to the Brother printers at that price point, and they don’t have any of the shenanigans you find in consumer-grade printers from most brands.
Still printing with it.
The only reason I can think of is that gouging customers must be the only real way to make money in that industry.
I used to work for a company that made a very nice, but expensive, dye-sub printer.
They decided not to continue the line, which disappointed a lot of folks, as the printers actually had some of the best tech, in them, but it wasn't worth it.
Printers from 20 years ago were pretty ok, so patents shouldn't matter much by simply building old-fashioned ones.
At this point, I suspect there may be a rule in economics that says roughly: it's better if your customers have to spend less money with you, but more often, than more money but less frequently. I.e. it's better to have them spend $1 every month with you than $12 every year. And I feel it could hold even if you correct for time value of money - it seems the businesses see some value in the frequency of repeat interactions with a customer itself.
[a]: Everyone complains about airline seat spacing, but nothing short of regulation will fix it because the margins are too thin to not pack everyone like sardines. If you have more leg room on your planes, you make less per flight, and that could put you in the negative.
The Canon inkjet I had was a completely different story. Genuine cartridges cost over $80, can print no more than 100 pages. Most importantly, after I dump the empty cartridges, the scanner stopped working.
We need serious probe into those malicious behaviors.
Maybe there are exceptions beyond consumer price ranges, but the only printer I've seen that actually worked was an inkjet over 20 years ago. Probably because it was too dumb to do anything other than print.
For printers, it's getting hard to even be able to buy something at a premium that will let you refill the toner yourself. But jumping to regulation to fix it is a bit of a leap, especially if your argument relies on the airline ticket thing.
Free markets work well with 100% transparency. That's the assumption in Adam Smith's models. If I buy a printer, and have complete awareness of the pain it will cause me and the long-term costs, and choose to spend $50 over $100, the free market is working fine.
If I go into a store and can't buy a printer without spending hours reading web pages (thousands of dollars of my time), and buy an inferior option due to intentional opacity, we need regulation.
This is very much the latter and not the former.
Airlines have better transparency than printer makers, by far. I might get ripped off on luggage, but I usually know that buying the ticket. I have no way to know a printer will disable itself in 6 months unless I pay HP off.
I blame Carly Fiorina for cannibalizing HP. Before her, it was a brand you could trust. After her, it's scam after scam. Before her, it had solid and unique R&D and brilliant people wanted to go there. After her, not a single competent engineer will work there. In the meantime, HP stock has not kept up with inflation. HP was just above $20 in 2007, and now it's just below $30. It has no fundamentals or competitive advantage in any real way.
In your airline example, focusing on low price is what has lead to budget airlines charging $80 for a carryon.
People just end up spending money they didn’t know they were going to have to spend on a product they probably didn’t want and is often worse quality than the competition.
It’s only good business because people are idiots and the people in these games are out to fleece idiots, not build a brand.
Even the U.S. Postal Service has noticed this.
When shipping a package, you can buy the postage online, then use a QR code on your phone to print the paid label at the Post Office and drop off the package at the same time.
Related question "Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786721 with the top comment from somebody who worked at HP printer division (hint: patents)
Unless someone comes up with a phenomenally cheaper way of manufacturing printers and the ink, there's not a chance a startup will succeed. I don't think that's gonna happen.
In terms of actual functionality, what's that different between a SOHO laser or home-inkjet printer you buy today, and one made 5 or 10 years ago? Resolution sort of plateaus because beyond 600, maybe 1200dpi, you're seeing diminishing returns. Output speed is capped by dry-time on inkjet (you don't want pages landing in the output tray and smearing the one below) and by power consumption of the fuser on laser. And I suspect that most of the rasterization smarts have been moved to the host, so it's not like there's that much there left to upgrade. The one thing I could say is "maybe duplexers" but they're also established tech, just cheaper and more common.
With a sensible design, they could be using the same basic chassis-- mechanism and cartridge designs-- for 10 years or more, and if they had to design a new control board with some new wireless doodad or USB type Q, that's one small part that can be plugged into an established design.
I'd be perfectly happy with a new HP Laserjet 5. Hell, I'd probably be happy with a new version of the Panasonic dot-matrix I had in high school, if it had Ethernet connectivity.
May as well pitch them on manufacturing floppy disks while you're at it. That's a better market because the only competition is new old stock and used disks.
Ink jet is terrible unless you print at least a few times a month, better if you print a couple times a week. Even then, it's not great. Laser is decent, but you have to actually pay for the equipment; once you do, they do scale down to very occasional printing, toner doesn't dry out, etc. I'm sure some of the rubber pieces will fail over time, used or not, that's just how rubber is, but in most climates, that's stil going to take a while.
Of course the money eventually runs out, and those startups are forced to do some nasty things to the customers, who may now find themselves with no one to jump to, as competitors are long dead. But hey, we're talking about printer market here. The incumbents are the leaders in nasty, underhanded, abusive business practices (as well as planned obsolescence, wastefulness, destroying the environment and the climate...) for the entire tech sector. I just can't imagine a startup making this market worse when it runs out of VC subsidies and has to actually make money. Even if it ends up killing the whole market... well, this is printers we're talking about, it's a dying market already, isn't it?
So in this one, rare case, I think it would actually work out great in the end. Of course this is also why no sane investor will fund such startups...
“The tolerances are very tight,” Ruiz said. “When you’re moving a box from here to there, if you’re off an inch it’s probably fine. But our images cannot be off by more than eighty-five microns”—a third of a thousandth of an inch—“or else they’ll be fuzzy.”
Not if you’re in a country with reasonable consumer laws. I reckon this would easily be considered as “not fit for purpose” in most of the EU if you tried to challenge it in small claims.
If the company refuses, then they are pretty clearly violating contract law. ("By the way, if you read this far, you owe me $10" is not a legimate contract, because you are forced to agree.) If that is the case, then it would be completely reasonable for the courts to render the entire EULA invalid, and fall back on first sale doctrine (no restrictions on the copy of the software you bought, etc, etc.)
If they are still dicks about it, figure out what the authors of the EULA were most afraid of, and do that.
Home run fantasy land: Wait until they sue some other user based on a clause in the EULA, then testify in court, causing them to lose that case, and also invalidate the EULA for all their existing customers.
To the outside tech user, they just want a printer and HP is global brand. My father would, considering our first ever computer was an HP so he'd be stuck with the mindset everything HP is great.
Avoiding their blobs may deny you of advanced features, but for documents where you're not aiming for max photo quality or color matching, it works very well.
It's 13 years old, but still runs like a champ. The network features are dead simple, like you'd expect. For $100, I think even the lifetime of the toner cartridges it came with is likely to be worth the cost.
I fully expect this printer to outlive my need to print things out.
I suppose people don't research refill options ahead of buying a printer? This ongoing maintenance cost would be the first thing I'd look into.
My initial question wasn't meant to be a rhetorical one. I was genuinely curious if there is any upside/reason why one should buy HP (print quality or whatever.)
I've wrangled my current LaserJet, but I keep hearing stories that make the HP company sound like the kind I want nothing to do with anymore.
I would love to patronize the least scummy manufacturer. Particularly I’m looking for a larger format printer that can do 11”x17” pages.
edit: Lexmark does look very nice, but their 11x17 printer is the $3500 C925... which is a bit more printer than I need.
Gotta have 11x17 printing and scanning for control panel drawing packages
No scummy driver shenanigans, works perfectly with third party cartridges. Once you realize the value of not being treated like shit, the price of their machines is pretty reasonable. You do get what you pay for.
Xerox also seems to be less terrible, but I don't have any experience personally.
If you can find a laser printer to fit your needs, choose laser every time. If you specifically need inkjet, you will have to pay extra for a professional model. Also make sure you keep up maintenance so the heads don't clog.
Consumer printers are dirt cheap because these companies sell them at a loss and use shitty tactics to force or trick you into buying only their heinously overpriced cartridges, then buy more than you need, and eventually the printer kills itself to make you buy a new one.
Business oriented printers tend to cost a LOT more, but you get a better quality printer and less evil corporate bullshit.
A newer model is out (P700) which solves somes issues (like the matte/glossy black ink swap) but is probably more locked down (important if you plan to use for example full greyscale ink sets like the piezography ones).
I had a better experience lately with (smaller, ink bottle type) Canons, I especially like the easily user replaceable print heads. Drivers and software still terrible.
What are you goint to be printing?
It’s like how putting up a sign that says “we are not liable for blah blah” doesn’t mean shit.
I think this may be my last HP printer as well. Company has a f the consumer mentality.
Tell that to the printer and see how far you get.
Apparently it is being enforced. By HP. Otherwise this post wouldn't exist.
HP's lawyers know nobody is going to spend $5,000 on a lawyer to get Justice for a $100 printer.
I need to go through their shitty app, sign up, sign in just to print something on my own printer. From time to time they have bugs in the app and I am kicked out of my own printer because app always needs to be logged in with user.
Come on HP, maybe drop this bullshit "better user experience" practices? I bought a hardware from you, take my money, print and shut up
I have an Epson which I'm happy with.
https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-laserjet-m209dwe-printe...
All this "smart" shit is just an excuse for corporations to have more tracking and more control.