[HN Gopher] HP CEO Makes Up a Whole Lot of Bullshit to Defend Cr...
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HP CEO Makes Up a Whole Lot of Bullshit to Defend Crippling
Printers
Author : artninja1988
Score : 73 points
Date : 2024-01-29 21:36 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techdirt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techdirt.com)
| wheybags wrote:
| > every time a customer buys a printer, it's an investment for
| us. We're investing [in] that customer, and if this customer
| doesn't print enough or doesn't use our supplies, it's a bad
| investment
|
| This is the problem. If they stopped trying to loss lead the
| printers, and just sold them for a healthy margin above cost of
| production, this whole issue would go away.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I was about to flag this BS, but you did it for me.
|
| Do you have any numbers for their gross margin on the printers?
| Because if it's not negative, then his "investment" claim is
| indeed BS.
| mc32 wrote:
| It's like safety razors and razorblades. At this point, if they
| brought up the price to reflect production costs, their
| competitors would eat their lunch because most people would
| gravitate to the loss leader.
|
| Only people who do TCO would buy the long-run cheaper option,
| just like most people buy cheap clothing rather than something
| that will last.
| graphe wrote:
| RMS's start of open source came with his hatred of printers.
|
| https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch01.html
|
| > In true engineer-to-engineer fashion, the conversation was
| cordial but blunt. After briefly introducing himself as a visitor
| from MIT, Stallman requested a copy of the laser-printer source
| code so that he could port it to the PDP-11. To his surprise, the
| professor refused to grant his request.
|
| >"He told me that he had promised not to give me a copy,"
| Stallman says.
|
| I don't get why people buy inkjets at all. You can get laser or
| CISS.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> I don't get why people buy inkjets at all. You can get laser
| or CISS._
|
| Because people don't know. They go to the store and buy the
| cheapest one. They don't consider ink costs, and so they end up
| saving $50 up front and then losing $500 over the life of the
| printer. The "just buy a Brother laser printer" advice is not
| widespread.
| bayindirh wrote:
| > I don't get why people buy inkjets at all. You can get laser
| or CISS.
|
| Because not all inkjets are crap. I have an HP Deskjet 4515 Ink
| Advantage. This thing doesn't dry out, prints out beautiful
| text and photos. Even though the color inks are not pigment,
| they do not fade out in 5 years.
|
| The inks are cheap, last a long time, and that thing works with
| everything from macOS to CUPS to driverless (AirPrint,
| Driverless CUPS, etc.).
|
| Bottom of the barrel printers are always bad, regardless of
| technology. What you want is high-end home, or entry level SoHo
| printers with proper network support, replaceable rollers (in
| lasers) and good firmware.
|
| These devices are not cheap, and most of them are not sold with
| razor and blades model. You pay a good money for the hardware,
| and that thing lives on for more than a decade with top notch
| reliability.
|
| I'd buy original cartridges to my printers everyday, because a
| good printer is worthy of the investment, and there's something
| called ink/toner quality. It's not colored water (or simple
| black dust) to begin with.
|
| These companies do not have ink/toner labs for no reason.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Given what HP is saying about how they want the printer
| business to operate, I think it's too risky to buy any HP
| printer at all.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| HP is trash. Is Brother still decent, or have they also started
| enshitifying their printers?
| xcv123 wrote:
| Yes Brother is decent. I only print a few pages a year, but I
| purchased a large Brother laser printer just so I never have to
| deal with printer bullshit again.
| farkanoid wrote:
| I have a couple of Brother Laser Printers at home, as well as
| several Brother Label Printers at work - Haven't had any issues
| to date. All work great under both Windows and Linux.
|
| I've used both genuine and aftermarket Toner for the Lasers and
| the same for the Label printers without issue.
|
| For label printers, avoid Dymo like the plague. They stopped
| Linux support and now include bidirectional RFID chips in their
| label spools to lock out after-market supplies. The remaining
| label count is decremented on the chip as you print.
| colomon wrote:
| Was just looking at buying a new printer a few minutes ago. Do
| people have recommendations for printers free of all this HP-
| style nonsense?
| temporallobe wrote:
| Brother laser printers.
| gotstad wrote:
| I feel like the "investing in the customer" part always seems the
| case with HP. The products never work properly unless you are
| willing to pay them more money or live with the extreme amount of
| bloatware in their PCs.
| temporallobe wrote:
| I don't personally use printers too much, but about five years
| ago I got a laser printer and never looked back. Apart from the
| low cost to entry, I can't figure why anyone would want to use
| inkjet printers. Total cost of ownership is much lower and
| reliability far exceeds inkjets.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Printing color, especially on photo paper, would be one reason
| for going inkjet, otherwise I agree with you. That said, after
| many years with laser printers I bought about 7 years ago an
| Epson wp4515 (now out of production I believe) which still
| works like a charm; no external software is needed and it is
| 100% compatible with Linux. Not sure if their newer models are
| that good though.
| jerbear4328 wrote:
| > Last Thursday, HP CEO Enrique Lores addressed the company's
| controversial practice of bricking printers when users load them
| with third-party ink. Speaking to CNBC Television, he said, "We
| have seen that you can embed viruses in the cartridges. Through
| the cartridge, [the virus can] go to the printer, [and then] from
| the printer, go to the network."
|
| I can't stop laughing. He can't be serious? If this was true, it
| would HP's fault for putting a chip in the cartridges in the
| first place! A cartridge should just be a container of ink, there
| shouldn't be a place to put a virus.
| jsnell wrote:
| Dupe:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39060793
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39119807
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39087776
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| News from over a week ago.
|
| Some more discussion:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39060793
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39119807
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39105752
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(page generated 2024-01-29 23:02 UTC)