Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/09/hp-will-no-longer-sell-printers-that-require-online-connection.html
…
9 Likes
I will no longer buy HP printers.
Didn’t think or care about their company “course correction” it’s too late, I don’t care.
I bulk purchase about 200 printers a year (unfortunately). None of them will be HP, *ever. *See how that works? It’s possible to enjoy Capitalism briefly as we both fall off the cliff.
24 Likes
I’d be curious about the reasoning behind this: was uptake simultaneously good enough that there’s still a substantial subscriber population to be milked but so damaging to the brand(and/or a strong driver of surprised returns to upset retailers) that they had to kill the line?
Are they just killing the project so hard and fast that there’s officially nobody left to issue that firmware update?
Are they worried about a period of cannibalization of the equivalent ‘non-e’ models by the remaining “-e” models being fire-saled and then flashed into full function?
Is the guy whose idea “-e” was just throwing a little tantrum?
6 Likes
Are they going to remove the sticker covering the USB port?
14 Likes
They bricked my printer. I wrote them back when they were seeking customer feedback and told them that I was a customer for 30 years- had thrown their printer out- and would never buy from them again.
30 Likes
I’ll probably never buy another printer. Of any kind. The one I have is probably about 10 years old at this point and gets turned on maybe two or three times a year. The last time was cancelling the registration on our car, which required mailing a paper form.
9 Likes
I work with a non-profit publisher; we print on paper every day; I’ll never buy another HP product.
6 Likes
About 10 years ago, we had an HP inkjet/scanner that guzzled ink like a Lamborghini guzzles gas, and an HP laptop running Windows that could not communicate with the printer using HP’s own drivers (while my Sony laptop running Linux and using generic drivers could print and scan just fine). While we never set out to banish HP from our lives, everything became easier in 2016 when my wife dumped her laptop and we replaced the printer with a Brother model (that is still going strong). As we read about more and more shenanigans from HP, though, we did eventually make a conscious decision to shun them – with the exception of a monitor whose brand I managed not to notice until after I had unboxed it. Fortunately, it has not forced us to sign up for a pixel subscription (yet).
10 Likes
As if it hasn’t been said enough before, Brother Whatevers FTW. We got an HP all-in-one from Admin/IT about the same time as we bought a Brother copier/printer on our own dime for general B&W copying use. The HP hasn’t worked right since practically day 1 (IT claims they are trying to get a refund and replacement), whereas, the only thing we have had to do to the Brother is swap out the toner cartridge. The Brother replaced an HP copier that died within 3 years and had trouble fusing the toner.
8 Likes
That conceit seems to assume that society will always have access to wireless digital resources, despite a complete dependence upon the current deteriorating power grid…
12 Likes
Some people still believe that history is nothing but a forward march of “progress”… it’s bullshit and has always been bullshit, and if you look at history there is no real evidence for that position, but for some, it’s an article of faith. It normalized and justifies all the violence of the past 500 years, frankly…
10 Likes
There’s no ‘cold fusion’ yet, no life changing discovery of ‘dilithium crystals’… just an ever increasing dependence on electricity, which is still mostly derived from burning fossils fuels…
9 Likes
8 Likes
Throwing out my HP officejet and replacing it with a Brother was, not exaggerating, one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.
It technically wasn’t broken but needed new ink and new heads (they’re separate on the enterprise models) which would have cost more than the Brother did.
I print sporadically, don’t need it for months until I really really do, and the HP auto cleaned so much that I had to buy ink at least once a year regardless of how much I used it.
Ok so just leave it off right?
Then it takes fifteen minutes and self cleans every time I turn it on.
I gave up the ability to print in color sure but that doesn’t matter to me. And now my ink anxiety is gone: I buy a toner cartridge every five years or so.
11 Likes
For a broad inkjet thing, i’d highly reccomend Epson’s Ecotank range…
Cost a bit more upfront, but ours has been running for ~3.5years and still is above 50% ink levels…*
*admittedly usage is very low since my brother moved out, but i think this really is a printer that’ll fail from age before the ink runs out… (previously spending £120 a year on cartridges, current cost: £0)
If this does fail, i’ll grab a second hand mono laser probably. But this inkjet is the best i’ve ever owned…
6 Likes
Not only did these stupid printers have to be online, but there was no screen or menu, so trying to figure out how to do anything with them was a pain. I was told - by HP - to use their app to do everything, but the app had trouble connecting with the printer.
I finally called and canceled my “Instant Ink” subscription and told them I was going to throw their terrible printer away. They tried to talk me into staying with them, saying they would walk me through how to get things connected, but I was done. Good riddance.
7 Likes
I still have all my darkroom kit in the corner of my office ready to go.
6 Likes
That’s probably wise.
6 Likes
I don’t know that Brother is a hell of a lot better. I did a firmware update on my color laser a couple years ago and it magically started showing non-Brother toner cartridges as empty. If anybody wants a deal on a batch of partially used toner carts, let me know.
Less than a year ago, I gave up and ditched my HP laser printer I’d only had for two years. The stupid thing would never stay connected to my network. I was constantly having to reboot it or my computer just to be able to print anything. And it wouldn’t let me stay “logged in” to my account for more than about a week, no matter what I did. I got a Canon. Much happier.
4 Likes
