Tell HN: Cancelling HP Instant Ink prevents cartridges from being used
I recently changed my card and figured I would let the subscription expire.
Fast forward to today. I go to print something and find that the printer is "unable to print" even though there is ample ink left in the cartridges. I press a button on the printer and it spits out a report that states the printer is unable to print, except for printer reports (!).
I dig a little (since the error message they show provides no additional information beyond not being able to print) and find this thread [0] in their support forum. It turns out that once the subscription is cancelled or suspended, you are no longer able to use the ink that has been sent to you. Some even report not being able to print with cartridges they bought independently.
It turns out that their terms state that you're buying the ability to print x pages and the ink is actually always owned by HP, even when in your possession.
This has to be one shadiest and just overall worst product experiences I've come across in a while.
Printers have always been a bit of a pain but since when did they have to be near permanently connected to the internet else threaten to cut you off from all of their capabilities.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20230522114823/https://h30434.ww...
395 comments
[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 283 ms ] threadThe days of actually owning something that you can self service/repair are coming to an end.
Recurring revenue is valued at higher multiples than non-recurring revenue, and the math for how to value it is much simpler. Higher valuation multiples mean more ability to raise money or access debt liquidity in the market at a lower cost in either equity or interest.
This creates a powerful systematic incentive for companies to look for any and all opportunities to tack a subscription onto everything.
It’s so powerful that it can make sense for a company to trade higher non-recurring revenues for lower recurring revenues.
The only thing that will push back is if consumers revolt and stop buying things that require subscriptions, especially if the subscription doesn’t make any sense or as with this case has unacceptable terms.
Bottom line is that you get what you incentivize. If you see a pathological trend, look for the incentives.
As we should. I don't care how much sense it makes for the business. It doesn't make sense for me, and I'm the one making the purchasing decision. Those who play this kind of game to trade higher non-recurring revenue for lower recurring revenue won't have my revenue, whether recurring or non-recurring.
The big problem is when it's hidden. If it's clearly spelled out that this is the way they're going to play, fine. But if you buy a printer and then later find out that they're doing this, that's basically a deceptive business practice, because the terms aren't what you were led to believe they are. That's something where consumer protection laws should apply.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_ha...
Honestly I wouldn't buy an HP anything at this point, since if they do this with printers they'll do it for other stuff.
That's not to say that I know they won't ever do those things, or that they have no plans to, but they at least right now seem to not be pulling this same kind of anti-consumer crap so far.
I've got a wee Brother laser B&W printer for 98% of my printing needs, and the email address for a local printshop who can slightly overcharge me whenever I need a photo (etc) printing.
I'm currently happy with our Epson EcoTank ET-5150. Ink prices are reasonable (no cartridges). There are subscriptions available for Epsons as well, and you can pay per page, but it's not required. Just click no.
I've bought several inkjet (hp, canon, epson) and even tried to refill the cartridge with a syringe only to discover that some inkjet printers are made to fail after a few hundreds page.
I have the brother 9330 laser color since 2014 and it never failed.
Printed 13k page and lost only 7 pages to jamming.
Yes. I was traveling and staying in a house that had no printer. To print I would load PDFs onto a flash drive and drive to FedEx Office. It didn't cost much but it was quite a hassle.
In my own house a printer is a must have item.
you're paying for X pages a month, and the ink is supplied to you to allow you to do that
would it be any different if you were in the local staples paying for X pages/month
if you cancelled would you feel entitled to go behind the counter and take the ink you've "purchased"?
You don't need to use the subscription model to use a printer, you can use regular cartridges.
I'm not suggesting they violated their agreement with the user, I'm saying that the terms of the agreement could have been more clearly communicated.
it's not an ink subscription
it's a printed pages subscription
you still have your printed pages after cancelling
It's a deviously smart trick, because people who let their subscriptions lapse probably really need to get something printed right when they find out about this restriction. You then have a choice between running to the mall and buying a new ink cartridge (or more realistically, a full printer, because those are cheaper) or paying for another year of ink subscriptions and continuing the print right away.
Friends don't let friends buy HP consumer printers. If you can get your hand on a second hand laser printer you'll probably be happy for years, but their inkjets are manufactured e-waste.
Inkjets are great for photos and people who print a few pages a week, but are absolutely the worst for people who rarely print anything.
Leave an inkjet alone for months and you can end up with permanently clogged print heads.
To resolve this you are meant to buy another printer. Or you can pull the whole thing to bits and try to replace the pad, then find some way to hack the firmware to reset the counter.
They verify ink bottles by requiring you to enter CD-key like number which is printed on a bottle. However, ink is cheap and you don't have to buy 3rd party one.
I still own my own laser printer because the convenience of not having to leave when I want to print is worth it, but I'm not pretending this is something worth doing.
Maybe if you don't value your time, or have perfect foresight/planning (eg. it's 10pm and you needed something printed for 9am tomorrow). The cheapest plan is $0.99/month, or $12/year. That seems like a pretty good deal to avoid having to do a 30 minute errand every time you need something printed.
A while ago, pre-subscription era, I bought their cheapest inkjet printer in a store because I needed to print/sign/scan a bunch of documents.
I fully expected to hate it... and to my surprise it is actually decent. I have it for seven years now and unlike all other inkjet printers I used in the past, its ink does not run dry. It never let me down when I needed to print something in a hurry.
https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/sustainable-impact.h...
How the hell is it sustainable to throw half a cartridge away?
HP OfficeJet Pro 9025e vs HP OfficeJet Pro 9025
OR
HP LaserJet Pro M234sdwe vs HP LaserJet Pro M234sdw
The "e" printers support subscription based ink and require an internet connection otherwise they won't print.
- It says it all over the outside of the box
- It says it in the box on multiple sheets of paper in big text
- It says it when you are installing the driver
- It says it when you are purchasing the subscription
The cost of the printer is subsidized to some extent (similar to carrier locked phones) and they are subscription based printers.
I don't understand how HP is at fault here. Subscriptions are a shitty business model, but nobody forced you to buy a subscription based printer. If you didn't want that, then you should not have bought the "e" model, you made that decision yourself, ignoring all the warnings outside and inside the box, regretted it later, then blamed HP.
https COLON SLASH SLASH thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=stranger+things&all=on&search=Pirate+Search&page=0&orderby=
It's not that obvious at all, actually even under their question section they state the subscription is not required:
- Does an HP+ Printer require a subscription to the Instant Ink service or rother ongoing costs?
"No, there are no additional costs associated with HP+. You can choose to enroll in an optional subscription for Instant Ink and receive 6 months subscription, but it is not required."
If you paid money for a cartridge that doesn't work without a subscription, you got scammed by the seller, not by HP.
Instant Ink is an optional subscription, which they plainly state, and that costs money.
It is marked as HP+ eligible. It states that HP+ is chosen or not at setup (https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71OZXjots2S._AC_SX679_.j...)
In the requirements it says: "The optional cloud - connected HP+ printing system requires an HP account, ongoing internet connection, and use of Original HP Ink Cartridges for the life of the printer."
etc
I don't buy inkjets anyway because they aren't worth it over color laser printers, but i will say trying to understand any of this seems hard at a glance.
Like, fundamentally an economic model should incentivize the creation of value; I buy a widget from you for $N, you get $N, and I get to own something that is worth $N; if HP is actively sabotaging existing printers/cartridges, it just feels like it's subtracting value.
Wait, what exactly are you subscribing to?
Their marketing page is very clear that it’s a set number of pages per month:
https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/l/v2
Honestly it's a horrible model for the customer but it's the world we live in now, you don't own anything you are just renting and are responsible for repairs. Sadly HP isn't any different than anybody else, try getting a white paper from Redhat without a subscription, try getting firmware from Dell without a subscription. First we monetized everything and now we are monetizing everything's lifecycle
https://linux.dell.com/ not only publishing firmware, they're also members of fwupd / LVFS.
> Sadly HP isn't any different than anybody else
Don't give in. There are less shitty companies and at least in the tech business there's many of us who have extra money that we can vote with, or can make recommendations to others (don't buy HP, maybe don't buy an inkjet in general).
That means:
- If I "buy" it in a store there should be clear signage that it is a rental and that I don't own the hardware. Ideally HP would mail consumers printers.
- there should be a line item on some bill saying "Printer rental" and when the rental concludes, they should send a shipping label to take it back.
- if the printer breaks, they should send a tech out to repair or exchange via mail. Heck the store where I rented it from could be paid by HP to do that.
Yes, this would cost HP money. Yes, HP might have to make hardware that isn't flimsy.
Instant Ink is an optional program. An optional program that is so grossly misunderstood that it has been a PR disaster since its inception and should really be scrapped.
I do agree that it is a bit wasteful but unfortunately it isn't economical for them to retrieve the partially-used cartridges from cancelled subscriptions, so it is just thrown away. It would be interesting if they offered a "buy out" option. When you cancel the subscription with half an ink cartridge they could sell it to you for half of the price.
If they allowed use of cartridges after the subscription expiry then the system could easily be abused by only subscribing for one month at a time to refill your cartridge then cancelling until you actually used it up. There are workarounds for this like minimum subscription length or blocking people based on address but they have other problems.
The real shady shit is rejecting third-party cartridges, that should be illegal. It's your printer and you should be able to decide what ink you use.
As a person who only uses original cartridges (w/o subscription, I buy and use them until they finish), I completely agree. However, ink chemistry is not some straightforward mixing and the risks are largely downplayed by 3rd party ink manufacturers.
This is even before going into ink pH, pigment vs. dyes, and print longevity discussions.
I'd be willing to accept that for systems where the ink cartridges and printheads are separate and third-party ink not up to spec can actually cause serious damage (e.g. clogged ink pipes, replacing or flushing these is a serious amount of work), but HP's consumer printers are almost exclusively made with combined inkhead/cartridges.
My decades old prints done with an HP500C are still intact and looking nice-ish and definitely legible. I don't want to get an old printed document a couple of years old and see it faded away.
Same for photos. I print photos for people and some of them are still looking almost new after 5-6 years, despite being printed with a mid-end "Ink Advantage" printer with dye inks.
For high volume, ephemeral prints, a 3d party ink can be OK, but these are my concerns, and I'm not willing to take the risks personally. Failing print heads and flooded printers are also not in my wish list, thanks.
A simple printer like an old 500C can be cleaned easily, but a more compact AIO with a duplexer cannot be cleaned after such event.
While tangential, I remember seeing HP's own, official black cartridge refill kits when 500C and 550C were new. I didn't see them after.
The biggest problem with inkjet is clogged nozzles from dried ink. The best solution is to flow through a bit of ink every now and again when the printer would otherwise be idle. The business model of expensive, vendor-locked ink maximally leverages this reality against the customer's interests to the detriment of print quality and nozzle longevity. So no, vendors don't use DRM to maximize longevity. Quite the opposite. Lol.
My almost a decade old HP Deskjet 4515 Ink advantage is extremely resilient against cartridge clogs. In standard mode, its printing pattern tolerates clogged lines so well, so that you can't see any print quality degradation unless you get a "print quality report".
Moreover, a couple of cleaning runs unclogs all the nozzles 99% of the time, even after 6 months of hiatus.
I never replaced a cartridge because of a clog since I bought that thing. It also routinely underestimates cartridge life. Currently it claims the black cartridge is empty, but it's printing with the quality of a new cartridge.
None of my HP Printers (4515, 5150, 500C and another entry level AIO) never let me down in the cartridge department, even after long idle periods. That entry level AIO just worn out internally, I gave others away because I was upgrading. 4515 is my current workhorse.
The only printer which had cartridge clogging problems was my Canon BJC4300. That thing made me decide to buy nothing but HP only.
Exactly and precisely 0.0% of printer manufacturers make their own ink.
Almost all printer ink in the world comes from a very small region, a single business park really, of Malaysia. Some is also made in Europe and Japan.
It is made by companies like Toyo Chem, DIC, Sakata, and Swan and transported directly to the facilities that fill the cartridges.
Printer companies have almost no input into the process, they buy based on spec from a list of offerings.
3rd party cartridge manufacturers buy the same ink, with the same specs, from the same manufacturers as printer manufacturers.
If a printer manufacturer claims to have an exclusive formula they are either lying, or the ink maker lied about giving them exclusivity because you can buy any ink from anyone at anytime. If the manufacturer wants to keep up appearances they'll change a single digit on the product ID and claim it is a different product, they don't care where the drums are going so long as the wire transfer goes through.
Even the ink manufacturers OFTEN don't "create" ink. They just blend pigments from pigment manufacturers together with solvents from solvent manufacturers in formulae that are pre-determined between the pigment and solvent makers.
If a customers says "I need an ink that does x" they go to the pigment and solvent suppliers and ask "what do I need to buy so the ink does x" and the suppliers tell them and the ink manufacturer follows the formula to the letter.
I am not involved in ink development myself, but I know that when we get a new ink from the other side of the ocean (with improved properties, or compying with updated regulations), many printing parameters have to be changed or new print mode algorithms have to be developed to maintain print quality. When it's just not possible, there may be hardware changes, or there is some more alchemy, and we get a new version of the ink. And so on. This can literally take years, and sometimes it just doesn't work and a new ink development path is abandoned
not saying that not allowing generic ink isn't bad, though.
For clarity: - inkjets: the customer chooses during setup if they want HP+ (they trade the ability to use 3rd party inks for +1 year warranty... lol); or keep it HP standard (no forced limitation on inks, 1 year warranty) - laserjets: if the customer buys an HP+, it comes "preactivated". I think HP sells non-HP+ models of the same printers, and customers are free to use whatever cartridges they want.
Very nuanced, and they make it complicated. Fan of the Instant Ink service (I'm grandfathered into the old free plans), but not a fan of the way HP+ is pitched.
If they couldn’t turn off cartridges when subscriptions stop, they’d have to send less-filled cartridges. Otherwise, there’d be huge incentive to sign up for one month, get your big cartridge, and cancel.
It looks like HP handles recycling old cartridges. It might be better than the alternative -- people buying ink and disposing of the cartridge in a landfill, rather than the cartridge being re-used.
You can argue that the HP Instant Ink program itself is a scummy project, but these particular terms are understandable.
I mean just look at the pricing of the program, $6 a month for 100 pages. VS $30+ for an ink cartridge.
This isn't some "subscribe and save" program where they are sending you ink at a reduced cost but you can do with it as you wish. It's buying pages, it's made very clear what you are actually buying and the ink is basically leased to you.
Now if they bricked the printer (like iRobot does with iRobot Select) I would be far more sympathetic and would be upset, but otherwise someone could just subscribe for a month. Pay the $1 and get a full ink cartridge, which simply doesn't make sense from HP's prospective.
I also don't understand what your cost argument is supposed to say: if you actually print at close to the allowed limit you're basically getting a new cartridge every other month or so, which is still not profitable if the $30 price is close to the break even price. If the problem for HP really was worry about not getting the money back for the initial cartridge they could just demand you commit for a six month period at least.
I don't know where you are getting your numbers from. If I to look at the HP Tango, and I look at the "High Yield" cartridge which is $46, that is rated at 600 pages.
So no, if you are doing 100 pages I would not expect you would be buying a new tank every month. Which is the $6 one I mentioned.
If they demanded that commitment we would just be complaining about the commitment and not this side of it... Also that doesn't account for when they do inevitably need to send you another cartridge.
The point here is simple, the marketing for "Instant Ink" is very clear about never stating how often you are getting a cartridge. It is just when you need it. They do that, because you are not buying the physical cartridge but obviously you need ink in your home to be able to print. If I subscribe to this for 3 months, spend the $18 a month. I may get that first cartridge but if O do zero prints, I won't be sent another cartridge (or at least shouldn't be).
Yes it is a bit weird to think that you have something in your hands that you cannot actually use. But you are not buying the actual cartridges in this model.
Put another way, let's assume this cartridge is actually 600 pages (it may or may not be since it depends on what exactly you print, unlike this subscription service that is just a per page). So you subscribe to this service saying you will print 50 pages a month. Theoretically that single cartridge you were sent at the beginning of your subscription will last for a year. You're paying $4 a month. HP is making the bet that you will keep up the subscription even though that first month is most likely a loss for them.
If they were to just be "nice" and allow you to keep the cartridge it just opens it up for abuse.
I mean, I pay $30 for 2 generic laser toner cartridges that last upwards of a year at my home (and my kids are prolific users of the Canon laser printer).
$6/mo is usurious just like $30 cartridges.
HP has gotten greedy and instead of making this transition to a subscription model easy they're getting well deserved backlash.
Aside from that, they cover shipping and recycling of old cartridges, and they include color/photo printing in that prices (not sure if you that's relevant for toner though? not a printer expert.)
$2/mo for 50 pages is a pretty great deal, as someone who seldom prints.
That allegation was essentially made: "Some even report not being able to print with cartridges they bought independently."
these days each bottle would have a "smart cap" that could remotely curdle your milk in case of non-payment. it's not (historically) normal, it's not fair, but it's recently normalized because tech has enabled new ways for corporations to squeeze their customers.
Well, it curdles on its own. They will come after you for the milk crate they delivered things in.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2016/10/03/florida-man-arrested...
https://www.milkcratesdirect.com/blog/everything-you-need-to...
>Milk crates are one of the most versatile products around and can be used for everything from storage to fishing, furniture or even gardening. And the best bit of all is that you can simply pick them up for free from outside stores, right?
>Wrong
has articles about using milk crates for gardening, seating, in classrooms, and on bicycles in the sidebar.
For example:
10 Great Uses of Milk Crates You’ve Probably Never Thought Of!
https://www.milkcratesdirect.com/blog/10-great-uses-of-milk-...
No, because they charged you $1 for every bottle they delivered. You bought the entire bottle upfront (you may have paid in arrears, but when it was delivered you agreed to pay)
Imagine instead the milkman drops 10 bottles on your doorstep. Some days you only want 1 bottle for tea and a bit of cereal, but other days you make some pancakes and need 6 bottles. At the end of the day the milkman takes back the unused milk and charges you for what you used.
Aside from the problem of milk spoiling that seems a perfectly reasonable model.
I can borrow as much as I can read from the library, but I can't keep the books I haven't read at home while I am not a member. The books never really belong to me, just as the HP ink never really belong to users (until they are printed onto paper, at which point they become a constituent part of a "page" which _is_ owned by the user).
I think the cognitive dissonance arises because this "borrowing" model is being applied to a _consumable product_, which is not common.
I buy an annual season ticket for a London-Reading journey with a monthly direct debit.
I then decide after 3 months I no longer want to use it, so I cancel the direct debit, and my account is settled
The train still goes, I'm no longer allowed to use it.
Within a membership limit, HP can send you 1 cartridge of 5 at a time. The number of cartridges are not pre-determined when you start paying
EDIT: and for the down-voters, I'll clarify: I fully support OP here. OP was clearly deceived by HP's marketing. But unfortunately we live in a world created by lawyers where there is no right or wrong--there's just "what the letter of the law lets you get away with".
Shipping boxes of heavy books costs a lot of money, and the publisher doesn't actually need the books back (because they can always print new copies very cheaply).
So the publisher just tells the book store to destroy the books, and as evidence for their destruction asks only for the covers to be shipped back to them (which is cheap).
This is why books contain within them the text "This book should not be sold without a cover".
So with this printer company, they are effectively "destroying" the unused ink cartridge since it's not worth it economically to have it shipped back to them.
The added bonus is that if the customer renews the subscription then the ink can be "undestroyed"!
If you don't like subscriptions don't sign up.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34688856
I need to replace my current color&laser Brother MFA . The printer still works but software support (on MacOS) has been discontinued. (The profile for CUPS comes with some helper bin/utility, it’s not a plain profile file). Also worth mentioning, the (smaller, not high-yield) color cartridges used to be ~$45 on and now they go for $70.
Pretty cool that we've let ourselves be led into a world where there's a rising private tax on use of "the printing press" and accept the choices that enable monopolizing control in the first place. Buyer's boycotts promote accepting the parameters but rejecting this one bad thing that just happens to be a product of those parameters and leave people exhausted from uninspiring campaigning with questionable impact. Like voting blue (or red whichever you want) harder to try to fix this kind of problem.
Speaking practically on topic, I haven't seen any Wirecutter-level consumer awareness campaigns in tech lead to material lasting change against corporate interests. The state of most Wirecutter type coverage of product categories seems to be generally worsening and getting more expensive rather than resulting in consumer-friendly change from market pushback. What you advocate for is essentially a Wirecutter movement and is as radical as Wirecutter is which we can see the underwhelming results of already.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178680
1. You are not OK with Shell dumping so much oil in the sea, so you stop buying Shell. But your action doesn't have any effect: you stop buying shell, oil still in the oceans. Boycott isn't the best path, unless it's really massive.
2. You are not OK with HP printer practices, but you don't necesarily want HP to go bankrupt or to pass a law banning HP practices. You just don't buy HP printers and you live happy afterwards. What other people does is not your problem. Boycott works.
You can say that HP selling ink subscription doesn't have any externalities, so every individual that buys one of such subscriptions is to blame and they don't shift costs to other people. You have options that keeps you safe from HP practices. Ask any Mac or Linux user how do they feel about Microsoft pushing trackers and ads on their OS: at best they don't care, but probably they laught at it.
— John Donne, 1623
Mother-in-law needed one too last Christmas, and we ended up getting her a Brother as well, even if the cost was a bit higher than the HP equivalent, purely because of their practices.
Vote with your wallet.
I don't know who still makes decent printers today -- I see a lot of people recommend Brother -- but why buy new when there are tons of cheap old laser printers from the days before they all became anti-consumer garbage?
For the audience, the key is using the Vista USB drivers from the site. Good thru 10 and I assume 11.
> It's plug and play on Linux,
Did not know that. Which distro? I have an Arch install that might benefit (from that slow, reliable 1010/1012 slog).
HP explicitly offers a subscription model of printing in which you can pay by the page. But cue the outrage about (surprise!) why that can't be subverted.
I have a 14 year old HP office laser printer (P4515x). After replacing the main cartridge (with a third party one!) and upgrading the RAM, it works fine, and it plugs into my ethernet. MacOS recognized the bonjour protocol using the generic PostScript driver. It works fine plugged into my 10 gigabit ethernet switch with a cat 6 cable.
I mean, it's 2d printing; this is something we've more or less nailed since the 90s (more or less with the advent of PostScript I think?); as long as the computers in my network can speak the protocol, I don't really see what I'm missing out on by not having a new printer...except subscription fees.
Borderless printing, color accuracy, the ability to use high-quality photo paper come to my mind.
I'll admit that maybe I was a bit reductive with my statement, let me amend it a bit: for a large percentage of common printing jobs, I don't think a lot of people are missing out by opting to not buy a new printer (except subscriptions).
I'm not saying it doesn't work for you, I'm saying it doesn't work for me and answering the question "what is one missing out on".
In fairness, I do think a lot of people really just have a printer around for the same reasons that I do, which is to print out primarily text documents, in which case I don't think most people would be missing a lot getting an old black and white laser printer. I have seen people spend a lot of money on printers and cartridges just to print out three pages of text every couple months, and those people would probably benefit from a cheap, old, black and white laser printer.
With a few small tweaks, you can probably even trick it into telling HP that every cartridge is immediately empty and get them to send you hundreds of cartridges all for $0.99/month.
You're better off just getting a Brother all-in-one. Those things are tanks and Brother, for some reason, seems to have executive leaders with ethics. Their scanning software is also the only one that works well.
I really with that the public (and hence, retailers) would stop hawking cheap HP nonsense. It would be like if AT&T resurrected the Bell Labs name for a software sweatshop in Bangalore.
Anyone who doesn't print often really should buy a laser jet. If you don't print often and you print photos, just order it from a photo printing service.
You could totally imagine a design where a special 'storage cup' is automatically clamped over the nozzles, sealing any airflow from getting to them so they never dry out.
OP is in possesion of the physical product that his subscription PAID FOR. They can say the sub is for "pages printed", but that's complete nonsense and everyone knows it. It's the INK OP is paying for. They have paid for that ink. They own that ink. They should be able to use it.
Attaching a subscription to a physical product, and then disabling the use of that physical product, is complete nonsense. The phone contract analogy is a poor one. You are paying off the cost of the phone with the contract. They don't send you a new phone each month, and then stop you using it because you didn't use all your minutes.
Normalisation of stuff like this is alarming. Consumers are done for really, I despair as to where it is all going. Especially when you have a usually informed HN audience sticking up for it.
I actually don't think that's nonsense, because HP is charging per page, not per ink cartridge. You don't get a new ink cartridge every month, you get the ability to print more pages, and only new cartridges as required to print those pages. Put another way, OP's subscription only paid for a fraction of their ink cartridge, not the whole cartridge.
HP could make OP mail back their half-empty cartridge, but that likely would raise the overall cost of the service due to shipping logistics.
I agree the whole concept of this service feels scummy and I would never recommend it to anyone, I just don't find this particular aspect so unfair.
But that's literally how it works! A certain number of pages are included in the monthly cost, and you're billed for additional pages over the limit.
The problem is that OP cancelled their subscription shortly after receiving a new cartridge. So now the options are:
• Make OP return the cartridge.
• Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!)
• Prevent OP from using the cartridge.
---
> The fact that ink must be bundled in cartridges that print many pages is HPs problem, not consumers, and they can't work around that with a non-sensical subscription model.
But at the same time: consumers are choosing to buy this subscription. HP provides an option to buy cartridges outright, without limits, and consumers are choosing the subscription instead.
I don't know why consumers are doing that. I would never do it, and I would strongly advise others against it. But many people appear to appreciate the service.
Now, maybe those people are being tricked into the subscription via dark patterns, which would be a problem, but a different one.
IMO, the Problem is that HP markets this as an ink subscription, when it is really a printed page subscription. It's hard to blame someone for thinking that an "ink subscription" would prevent them from fully utilizing ink paid for during the subscription.
This seems like HP is trying to capitalize on all kinds of other product subscription models popular today (eg: Aamazon Subscribe and Save, pet food deliveries, water delivery, etc.), but purposefully making the marketing as misleading as possible.
Don't call it "instant ink", call it a Print Subscription and you'd probably eliminate most of the problems (and sales...).
I honestly thought all the marketing materials I've seen were quite clear about how the service was billed. I don't think changing the name would lead to more or less confusion or sales.
I could easily see myself looking at selecting a plan based on number of pages and thinking that they're just using that to measure the amount of ink. "Plan x: 10 pages/month" meaning that you get the amount of ink you need per month to print 10 average pages, not that once you get the ink you need to keep paying for it.
It's very clear how it works.
But sadly, the people that created the program don't spend enough time on the Internet to learn that the way the general public perceives things often does not match reality.
Ever since Instant Ink started, the Internet has been flooded with morons that think they're geniuses by thinking they can buy 1 month of Instant Ink, cancel the sub, and then keep using the cartridges they think they paid $3 for.
If you sub to Instant Ink, you never owned the ink cartridges. At best, you're renting them. Once you decide to stop paying the rent, you don't get to keep using them. I don't know why some people struggle with this.
Because the internet is flooded with idiots, this is a massive waste of perfectly good ink cardridges.
... or just let them keeps the 50 cents worth of ink and consider it good customer service, let them leave on a positive note so they hopefully choose to come back, rather than burning the bridge? Why do they have to invent some system of enforcement beyond "just don't send any more cartidges"?
I think the incentive to cancel right after receiving a new cartridge would be extremely high, to the point of rendering the whole service non-viable.
HP would have to limit how frequently customers can cancel, institute a waiting period before resubscribing, or track individual abusers and issue lifetime bans.
The first result for genuine HP ink cartridge on amazon is $23, and has a claimed yield of 170 pages. Meanwhile, the cheapest plan for HP instant ink is $0.99/month. If you could subscribe for the cheapest plan, then instantly cancel, you're basically getting a 96% discount on ink cartridges.
Solution: non-refundable first month, make it greater than cost of first ink cartridge. Risk removed.
However, the new problem is that most customers would rather have the current situation pay as you go situation than pay up front.
Id be dammed if I pay full price for a product AND a subscription. If it is a 50% discount (as advertised), the customer is still looking at 3 cartridges before they break even.
Don't you have to buy a printer first? Am I missing something here?
I wonder how many understand what they're buying into here. It was certainly very far from clear to me.
I thought it was an "ink subscription service." That is, you pay your monthly fee and they provide a continual stream of ink to you.
But apparently, it's not that at all. Instead, it's "printing as a service".
The pricing section very clearly mentions pages, not ink cartridges. Also, the first FAQ question literally says:
>How does HP Instant Ink work?
>HP Instant Ink is based on pages, not cartridges [...]
I was thinking that they were using "pages" as a means of measuring the quantity of ink in a way that people can understand, not as literally meaning "pages".
I thought that way because I really believed HP was offering an ink subscription service, and my interpretation is the only one that makes sense if that's what it was.
But it's not. This feels intentionally ambiguous to me. Perhaps it's not, but I bet my interpretation of what they're saying is not rare.
I remain very pleased to avoid HP inkjets, regardless.
When you buy a cartridge it's also measured in pages but you are neither guaranteed that many pages nor limited to that many pages.
>• Make OP return the cartridge.
>• Charge OP for the remainder of their cartridge as a cancellation fee. (Yuck!)
>• Prevent OP from using the cartridge
• Let the customer use up the remaining ink as a gesture of goodwill so they do not hate HP forever with the rage of 1000 forest fires?
> consumers are choosing to buy this subscription.
The will never again once experience this.
Honestly, people have to remember that customers are not a value in a cell in a spreadsheet.
You think people should be able to buy 1 month of Instant Ink, cancel, and keep the cartridges they paid $3 for?
Profit that is desperately needed since the printer itself is being sold at a loss.
I feel like this is the only reasonable solution? We do this for mobile phones and leased cars as well. I think it’s fairly well understood.
https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/instant-ink/plans.html
You are paying $6 for 100 pages. Then you can add 10 pages for $1 (that amount changes based on the subscription).
We can argue that the program has some scummy aspects but if we are going to argue about this we should at least look up how it actually works here.
WHAT?!
That's insanely expensive. You'd think they'd have to beat the prices to print things out at the local copy shop, at least.
The real moral of this story is that people should stop buying HP printers, or at least HP inkjet printers.
(For a laugh, see also The Verge's 2023 Printer Buying Guide: https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-...)
Where I am printing a black and white document is around $0.20.
A color print is $0.60.
So 100 black and white pages would be $20 and color would be $60.
Sure you have to add paper to that calculation but considering that is a 500 count for $10-15 thats still makes it cheaper wether you are doing black and white or color.
Now yes you do have to take into account the cost of the machine.
I justified buying a brother laser printer about a year ago after running the numbers for low to mid levels of printing and it just didn't make sense to spend as much as the places around me were charging.
It would be an interesting thing to look at what the pricing for things like this actually is around the country to see if something like this actually makes sense.
If I was doing a super low volume (but consistent) of prints I could see how the math on one of these lower plans makes sense given the options around me.
It's the only copy shop I use, so I have no idea if their pricing is unusually low or not. I assumed it isn't that different in other shops, but it might be.
$1/month -> 10 pages $4/month -> 50 pages $6/month -> 100 pages $12/month -> 300 pages $25/month -> 700 pages
In my mind, the value for the consumer is at the lower prices, where it's nice to have a printer for a few pages a month, but you know the ink is going to dry in the cartridge before you use it. I'd think HP's program will send you a new cartridge when you need it in that case, but I don't know. At higher volumes, it's probably less expensive to buy cartridges as needed, unless all your prints are full page coverage. But then ink jet has a weird niche; it's cheap, but it's worse for low volume printing because the ink can dry and foul the machine, and it's worse at high volume because the print speed isn't near laser (or highvolume impact!) and the supplies are expensive. It's great if you print a few pages a week to a few pages a day. Warm up time can be better or worse, depending on how long it takes to squirt all the ink into the sponge before it prints.
1. is the one you mentioned with drying ink. I have to imagine that given some of the low print volumes that they are anticipating this and it is part of the system?
2. Related to this, are they smart enough to send lower or higher volume ink cartridges based on your plan and usage.
It kinda makes sense that neither of these are outlined in the FAQ since ink management is supposed to be on HP's side with this. But I am curious (not enough to buy a printer and sign up though)
My multifunction printer cost £50 and a ream of paper (500 sheets) is about £6.
Commercial printers charge 10-30p a sheet. I even have an acquaintance with a pay per click service contract on his huge Konica Minolta photocopier who seems to pay the same per click as I do.
When we use “Windows” we don’t complain that they’re not real windows. When we use a Mac, we don’t complain that it’s not real Macintosh apples. It’s just a name.
As the parent commenter says, you pay explicitly for a quota of printed pages, not ink or anything else. Therefore, they do define a price per page, anywhere from 10c on their cheapest plan down to 3.57c on their most expensive.
Is it a shitty practice? Certainly. But you explicitly dont pay for ink, regardless of the name of the product.
The point is, you can't just throw your arms up and say "oh well what a coincidental name HP selected for their product". Misleading names can have a real business impact and might even be intentionally misleading.
The subscription is more than clear. Please show me where it claims in any way shape or form that you are buying a cartridge of ink that you can keep using after your subscription. I’m waiting.
Because it’s called a “printing plan” the entire way until you get to the pricing section, where they use “ink plans” to obviously distinguish it from the “toner plans” next to it.
It also actively talks about pricing being per page, replacements per pages printed, literally everything talks about it being based on pages printed. It even explicitly tells you you won’t get cartridges regularly, but based on pages printed. It’s more than clear that the whole thing is based off pages printed and not the ink itself.
It even explicitly goes over this in the FAQ on the homepage:
> The subscription cartridges only work while your printer is enrolled in HP Instant Ink service, so you will need to purchase store-bought cartridges after your final billing cycle to continue printing.
It’s like you’re trying to manufacture the outrage on the spot based on a loose skimming and the appearance of keywords.
Good advertising should only require loose skimming to know what they're trying to sell you.
Are they transparent about the pricing being per page, the actual thing we’re discussing? Yes.
The goal posts are over there. Gotta love the fact you ignored all of the points in favor of a bad strawman. As I said, manufactures outrage.
> HP Instant Ink uses high-volume cartridges, pricing based on pages printed, and direct-to-customer shipping delivered only when you run low.
> You’ll get your first cartridges when you sign up and then receive replacement cartridges based on how much you print—not every month, like other subscriptions.
Ok, Jan.
This was called out in literally my very first reply to you. I'm done with this bullshit. I'd say have a good day, but I'd rather hope you didn't.
You really can't bother to even look at the page can you? Jesus fucking Christ, the audacity.
Ctrl + F "high-volume cartridges" = no results found
Ctrl + F "first cartridges" = no results found
Edit: And this is the page I'm looking at https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/cv/instantink
In my experience, good advertising is the opposite - it requires extensive reading about what they're trying to sell you - because it's good advertising, not a good encyclopedia.
Nope. If it's misleading, it doesn't matter. Names don't have to be verbatim, but they should not be misleading.
> show me where it claims in any way shape or form that you are buying a cartridge of ink that you can keep using after your subscription
Not my claim. What I'm saying is that I believe the name and advertising could be seen as misleading in a similar way to existing class action lawsuits. It doesn't matter that the hpconnected site is ranked higher in google; the hp.com site for instantink is pretty misleading as seen in all the points in the other thread.
Maybe you don't think veggie straws was misleading either, but a class action lawsuit [1] came of it. My original point was that the name of the product is more significant than you implied in your comment.
1: https://truthinadvertising.org/class-action/sensible-portion...
She's retired but she does a lot of arts and crafts stuff and seems to print a fair amount most months, and she hates having to drive somewhere to buy ink when you run out, so I guess this is more convenient.
Its super easy to be on a "heavy" plan, get 10 ink cartridges, then cancel the first month and use that ink for a year. This causes HP to lose profits. They are betting that people don't really print as much as they think they do, most people are overpaying for their plan, and a small amount are actually using it up.
Imagine if Netflix would let you KEEP your downloaded content after you stopped paying. Customers would pay for a month, download everything, cancel, then watch stuff throughout the year
HP essentially created an optional netflix-style ink cartridge plan. As long as you pay you get unlimited cartridges. The second you stop paying you lose it all. No one is forcing you to opt in, but I know a lot of people who like the style even if they understand they're overpaying
or you could print 10 pages with a single sentence in them
HP sends you new cartridges depending on your use. So the second person in my example would not get a new cartridge, while the first would get 3 in the mail the next day. Both are paying the same monthly payment.
Its a dumb idea, but some people opt-in to it. And from my personal experience people end up with lots of extras being shipped to them. They can have 5-6 full cartridges at home at a time, for future use. HP doesn't want you to get stuck without ink, so they overstock you. Cancelling can cause people to take advantage of that overstock
Presumably they also don't want to spend more than necessary on shipping. It's a lot more economical to send 6 cartridges at one time, than to send 6 packages with one cartridge each.
It might not even cover shipping costs for the ink, you pay $0.99 and receive a full set of fully filled cartridges, that may last you a few years on a $0.99 subscription.
Are you really willing to subscribe to a baseline 100USD/month subscription for ink?
Because that is how much a single, high capacity ink cartridge costs on average. Can't be lower that the price of the cartridge, if you're buying whole cartridges. Also, will probably be more than this, because you might need several cartridges for more volume, or several types of color cartridges.
charging by pages printed is just creative accounting and unfair to those that print lots of pages with little ink, while giving an advantage to those who use lots of ink per page. what's more, that's information i don't even want the printer company to get.
there is only one benefit to charging per page: print shops, because they charge per page too, so the cost and profit margin per page will remain the same regardless of how much ink they need.
I wouldn’t use this plan because I don’t print enough to make it worth it, but that doesn’t mean they are evil for offering the option.
If it’s hidden in the UI that’s bad. OP sounds a lot more surprised than he should be.
Probably wouldn’t take long to get banned from like every retailer though.
I wouldn’t really endorse this but HP stiffed me on $500 when they canceled an order I placed with an HP gift card. It just, disappeared. Their customer support never even understood the problem, they just sent different and wrong form replies to everything. It had been too long to charge it back but at this point they’ve earned every bit of hate they’ve ever got in my mind.
Added: I, for one, am pleased that HP has sent me hundreds of dollars worth of consumables (paper and ink) and lets me then pay for it over time, at a discounted rate and no interest.
If you sign up for a cost per print plan, you get some benefits in consideration for your payment. If you drop it, those benefits end. It’s no different than renting a car and expecting to keep driving after it ends.
I use HP Instant Ink because my kids want to print color. Otherwise, I have a brother that I purchased like 15 years ago! The cost is cheaper at the volume we print, and you don’t get in a position where your marginal cost goes up by $75 or whatever the cartridge sells for. I think we pay about $60/year.
My sister-in-law is a photographer and prints alot. She has the fancy Epson tank printer, which makes sense for her as she prints easily 2,000 prints a year.
This is more like paying for an aftermarket maintenance plan and then expecting to drive your car (that you bought) after it ends - like no fucking shit you should expect to keep using your car after that maintenance plan expires. When they expire they don't siphon out your gas, oil, windshield washer fluid, engine coolant, brake fluid, and automatic transmission fluid!
There are two components that you are paying for here:
In the first case, since you purchased the car outright, you would expect to be able to operate the car after the maintenance agreement expires - with you paying out of pocket for the cost of maintenance, of course. It would be asinine to assume that you lose the ability to use your car if the maintenance plan goes away - that's now how purchasing items works.In the second case, you purchased the printer outright - it's not advertised as renting or leasing a printer, it's advertised as a sale. It is asinine to assume that you would lose the ability to use the printer after the automated ink refills end since you bought the printer outright, and bought for a price not for significantly less than the competitors printers without this service.
Another example that's closer to the model that HP is trying to mimic - razors and razor blades. Assume you sign up for a shave club that sends you blades and shaving cream every month with the purchase of a razor handle and a fee. If you cancel the shave club they don't ask you to send the razor back, and if anyone tried to enter your home and take it from you then you'd be well within your rights to involve the police for burglary and theft.
If HP doesn't want to get backlash for this then they need to clearly advertise their printers are leased and are bricks if you ever sign up for their instant ink and cancel. Otherwise they are being completely unreasonable, no matter what cutesy language they want to hide behind in whatever contract the user is not free to negotiate or is forced into arbitration if there are disputes.
They're a big boy company, no more lying to their customers.
Buying a car outright, then buying an "InstantGasoline" plan where you pay per month and get a tanker of gasoline delivered to your house, but if you go over 500 miles in any given month, they remotely disable your car and the tanker's gasoline pump. So you thought you were buying gasoline (given the marketing name "InstantGasoline") but instead have a useless car and locked gasoline tanker.
This is definitely a case of deceptive marketing, and people are defending them because what the company is actually providing is spelled out on page 72 of some dense, single-spaced contract somewhere.
Not really, they have a choice of plans, all based on how many pages you want.
The cartridges are pretty big. Most people will get one only every few months or so, as they need them.
No, they are paying for pages printed. Which may be a dumb model for consumers (its common for business) but its the model they explicitly signed up for.
It's pretty on-brand for the HN audience I feel. For several years HN has felt like the epitome of the temporarily embarassed millionare meme. The site often supports corporations taking what they can for users, and the only reason I can see for people to feel so strongly about it is they either are or imagine themselves in the future to be stakeholders in companies that make their money from exploiting consumers.
This is precisely where the analogy falls down. https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/instant-ink/plans.html
Each plan talks about paying for x pages per month. It's pretty clear you're not paying for recurring delivery of a product; if you only print a few pages a year, you may never need a second delivery, ever.
No it doesn't. The reason you're paying is for the ink to be delivered, even if pricing is only indirectly related to that.
> if you only print a few pages a year, you may never need a second delivery, ever.
This isn't true because the cartridges dry out and clog up if you don't use them enough.
No, you're paying to be able to print up to 10 pages a month.
Thought experiment: If signing up for a subscription required an agreement to mail (postage-paid) the cartridge back to them when the subscription lapses, would that be legitimate?
If it was to refill the cartridges and send them to another subscription customer, yes. If it was just to make sure they end up in the trash instead of getting used, then no, that should be illegal.
This is factually plain wrong. You’re paying per page. If you print more pages than agreed, even on the same cartridges, you need to pay up per page. When you sign up, they even tell you to keep your original cartridges because the new ones are for your subscription only.
No one is paying for an agreed amount of ink or cartridges to be delivered. That’s not the service. The advantage of InstantInk is that you literally don’t care about ink anymore. You know you can print the amount of pages and HP takes care of when and what ink you need.
Wanting this to be true doesn't make it true.
The wording is clear. You're not paying for ink, you're paying for pages printed. The ink is nothing more than a vehicle to deliver those printed pages. You never owned the ink.
That distinction must be understood. You never owned the ink cartridges. At best, you're renting them. Once you decide to stop paying the rent, you don't get to keep using the cartridges.
I would argue that if that is indeed what you actually agreed to, yes, the publisher should be allowed to do that.
The obvious solution is - don't accept stupid fucking contracts with terms you don't actually agree to!
Most people just print a few pages every few weeks, and I'm arguing that those are also good use cases for laser. The upfront cost of laser is pretty low these days. You can often get a color all-in-one laser, with duplexer, for under $200.
The sweet spot for ink is somewhere in the middle. Printing regularly, but not high volume.
AFAIK, the only reason to go inkjet is if you're regularly printing photos, as inkjets typically produce better photos than laser.
I probably print 20 pages per year. I bought a Brother monochrome laser printer because I want the convenience of printing from home but got tired of my inkjet cartridges clogging and drying up.
I have not looked at how easy it would be to clean out, reuse and reset the box but I suspect it is possible.
If you purchase a printer, it should be able to print. The subscription is described as :
> The subscription promises to send you ink when you're running low as long as you print within the designated number of pages.
So it seems its only related to when the ink is getting low. It doesn't mention "You will lose the ability to print documents should you cancel your subscription."
That would be considered leasing a printer.
This is predatory too as the OP mentions the subscription was attached to the newly purchased printer.
> I bought an HP printer that came with an HP Instant Ink subscription a year ago.
So IMO there is no defense of HP here.
On their terms : https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/v2/terms
> Consequences of Cancellation. You agree that HP will not be liable to You for any cancellation of Your Service or refusal of access to the Service or Site. Upon cancellation of Your Service for any reason mentioned in this Agreement, any rights granted to You under this Agreement will terminate and You must immediately cease all use of the Service and return the Subscription Cartridges to HP as detailed in Section 5.e (“Subscription Cartridges must be returned by You to HP”). Furthermore, any Promotion Incentives that you earned pursuant to the Refer-a-Friend Promotion will immediately expire upon termination of Your Service.
No mention of the printer being disabled ?
And it can. You just need to buy a regular cartridge now.
You purchased the printer. You licensed the ink cartridge, via pretty clear terms.
I am mistaken obviously as I thought it was a convenience of delivery subscription.
They likely don’t bother reclaiming them because it would cost more than they’re worth.
With Instant Ink, you are not subscribing to ink cartridges. You are subscribing to a monthly quota of printed pages. The ink is merely the vehicle to deliver the printed pages. You never own the ink cartridges. At best, you're renting them. When you decide you don't want to pay the rent anymore, you don't get to keep using them.
No mention of the printer being disabled, but mention that OP is required to return the cartridge that they didn't return.
If they actually intend for you to return the cartridge HPs position is a lot more reasonable. It's no longer "and we destroy the ink that you didn't use" it's "and we re-sell the ink you didn't use to someone else".
On the other hand if this is basically just a scam where they intend for you to think you have a working printer, when you don't, unless you resubscribe. Then that's despicable. The fact that they apparently didn't follow up asking for their cartridge back makes me suspicious that it is this.
The error messages were incredibly unhelpful (I like to believe they were too ashamed to tell you what was actually wrong).
Turns out their credit card was due to expire soon. Was shocked when I found that was the issue & had a hard time explaining what had gone wrong. I’ll definitely advise against HP printers going forward.
Once I figured out what the problem was, she was able to get the printer re-enrolled, but then it took a while for the printer to realize. And then, the ink was apparently dried up, because it didn't want to actually print. I don't have a problem with the HP printing plan, but clear messaging on the printer would help, and inkjets not being terrible would also help. (Also, it would help if my MIL wouldn't leave problems unsolved ... 'Ohh, it stopped working a few months ago', but that's a different issue)