HP detonates its timebomb: printers stop accepting third party ink en masse

$65 Brother laser printer three years ago. It works first time, every time. Cartridge refillable for $5. Drugstore prints color. Zero regrets.

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Yea I’m still running a Samsung I bought seven years ago. I can’t even find drivers any more. It cost me $50 and then I charged a buddy $50 to do his taxes.

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HP Bought Samsung’s printer business the other day, so I’d expect the driver situation is about to get a lot worse for Samsung printer owners.

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Are either of those the infrastructure of HP? I don’t even know why you are asking me those questions. If HP’s actions in your own home or business are directly affecting your productivity, it seems like it should be an obvious tactic to do the same to HP. It doesn’t have anything to do with vague feelings of rage, it is the basics of dealing with their organization directly, as an equal.

The reason why most corporations act to disempower people is precisely because they know that hardly any of those people will actually do anything about it. If you demonstrate to abusers that there are no negative consequences for their abuse, and they only profit, then this obviously demonstrates an incentive for them and others to continue that abuse. The results can be seen all around us.

I think I am, despite not being one of those affected. When people are exploited, do you think there action is more likely to occur by people communicating about this and planning what to do? Or are results achieved by people suffering in alienated isolation as mere consumers?

Your question sounds like it is posited to characterize my input differently than that of others here who are also “typing on the internet”. But the internet is not a place we are on/at, it is a communications medium between people who use it. It does seem weird that people can use reminding of this, and that they are only as politically and economically impotent as their actions make them.

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if i could 3d print an inkjet printer , insert arduino ( and/or pi ) and stepper and belts and such , where would i get the inkjet heads and the ink ?? do octopi make good pets or do they go all chtulu on you when you try to harvest ink ?? nevermind , google search suggests berries and vinegar or black wallnut hulls ~ i have black walnut hulls ( dark , messy woodstain )

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HP consumer printers lost my recommendation in the 90s and their corporate printers lost my recommendation over ten years ago.

Cheap flimsy, terrible, and prone to breaking. I wish I had a better recommendation at the consumer level but other than buying a single purpose laser jet for no less than $200 (Brother isn’t too bad at that price point as long as it’s not an all-in one), I can’t think of anyone I can recommend.

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The market is wide open for hand-made, craftsman quality, artisanal printers. Made with the finest eco-friendly materials (and aluminum). I shall await for the hipster printers on Kickstarter.

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I dumped HP for Epson years ago and never looked back. I don’t even use third party ink. I found HP’s software to be beyond horrible. I stuck with them for more than a decade because I assumed none of the other manufacturers were any better. It turns out they are ALL better.

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Hello, you have two items incorrect. 1st, Lexmark was not owned by IBM in 2003. 2nd, today we are still a NYSE traded public company (NYSE:LXK). However, we are in the process of being acquired, and not by ‘Static Control’, which is an incorrect statement. You can find out more about our acquisition here: http://bit.ly/1XHAJXK.

Thank you,
Jerry Grasso
Vice President, Corporate Communications
Lexmark International, Inc.

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What on earth… Jerry get back to work.

Hell i should get back to work.

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I’ve been extremely happy with my $500 Xerox Color Phaser. I print enough that I probably spend half of that every year for toner, but I have yet to be disappointed. I know toner has a shelf-life, but it doesn’t dry out like ink. If I only printed a few sheets a month, I might feel differently.

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That general observation has been made by @doctorow before:

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Oh, that Jerry from Lexmark. You know how he is.

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No, by Apex Technology, which is a completely different company except for the fact that it merged with (read: bought) Static Control in 2015.

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Wouldn’t that be a letterpress, but with WiFi? No, better yet – a parallel port!

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Impressive - so much text without answering the question.

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“What the hell are you talking about?” Is also a terribly vague, open question. And then they go from there to asking for clarification about things which were far outside the scope of my original comment. If somebody honestly needs to know what I am talking about, I would hope that they begin by carefully reading what I actually said, rather than their first recourse being to jump to weird conclusions.

Why should I put forth the effort to respond in detail to what I didn’t say?

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I doubt it. Inkjet printers are sold using the Gillette business model. That is to say they are sold for a cheap up front cost (likely at a loss or break-even to the manufacturer) with costs recouped by needing to buy expensive replacement wear items. While I can’t justify what HP is doing here, I can understand the business justification that’s in play.

That said, fuck consumer grade inkjet printers. They are built for cheap, with cheap parts, and aren’t really repairable. Laser is the way to go – they are built to last, are faster, print higher quality, and don’t rely on such a shady business model; they start out expensive and stay that way.

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Still not quite right:

Apex Technology Co., Ltd. PAG Asia Capital, and Legend Capital Management Co., Ltd. are acquiring Lexmark.

Thanks, Jerry

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