Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/24/hps-nonpology.html
The “nonpology” is a corporate standard: a company does something terrible, and then it tells you it’s sorry that you found its behaviour upsetting. But HP’s October 2016 public statement on its secret, aftermarket attack on its customers’ property has made important advances in the field of nopologyology.
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It would be helpful to include a link to the HP manual update page. Anyone have that?
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I hate the shaver and razor blade model. We need to get back to the transparent model where the price is in line with actual manufacturing costs.
Low end printers should cost 3 times their current price and ink should be a third the price.
As it is now, low cost printers subsidized by high ink prices have driven out anyone who tries to price printers reasonably. The days of sub-$500 printers have got to end.
With luck we’ll see successful action against HP preventing cross -product subsidies and we’ll see printer prices rise to the point where we can actually see printer competition from companies that don’t have the entrenched printer-supply network to provide the profit.
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I don’t see a nopology at all - just an explanation.
Also, you seem to think throwing away an inkjet printer is a bad thing…?
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This really has a simpler solution. Never buy from HP again. My Laserjet 3 ranks with my all time favorite tech product. Now replaced by Epson large ink capacity type printers. What were they thinking?
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Epson are trying it with the Ecotank range, which seems to be doing reasonably well. I think it’s still to expensive to gain a lot of marketshare, it’s around five times the price for the low end model, with the same print engine.
The printer companies do seem to have stepped up the propaganda presented to their dealers around 3rd party cartridges recently (Although they aren’t offering great cash incentives to sell them).
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It is when done for no good reason, unless you think a pointless waste of resources is a good thing.
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Or you can just avoid buying into the racket. Get a laser printer, which have always been priced rationally. As an added bonus, you’ll no longer have half the ink you purchase get wasted on nozzle cleaning operations. The less often you print, the more sense it makes to get a laser printer, because toner never dries out. The same toner cartrifge that comes with the printer will still be perfectly good three years later, unlike liquid ink, where it dries out and clogges the nozzles, forcing the printer to use up loads of ink just to keep it functional.
Color laser printers have gotten affordably cheap, they are still big but they come with wifi so you don’t need to have them on the same desk as your computer anymore, and while they suck for printing photos, given the way every drug and grocery store now has a photo printing kiosk that will make lovely color glossy prints out of your digital pictures, that’s no longer a realistic downside.
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I wonder if some people at HP are trying to figure out how they can force you to use only HP authorized paper in their printers. What am I saying? Of course they are.
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If asked today (and for the past few years) My answer when asked what Printer to buy (for the home) is always.
Brother. Laser. Choose what ever level of Multi FUnction\Color\Capacity you want.
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My personal printer is an ancient HP P1006 Laserjet. After the taster toner cartridge ran out, I replaced it with a full toner cartridge, and it has been happily rolling along for over five years! My wife has a wi-fi Brother for scanning and color printing needs. I want to toss the HP in protest, but it won’t die.
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That was actually a joke, but you must admit inkjet technology sucks, and is very expensive if it’s used much.
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I bought a laserprinter which came with a half sized toner, so I bought a full sized toner to replace that when it ran out. I don’t print much, and so, 10+ years later, I’m still using the half sized toner 
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Home laser printers have been priced with an inkjet model for years; a number of the low end ones are basically plastic boxes into which the entire works fits, and a new set of cartridges costs more than the original printer and its starter cartridge. You have to get to office size printers to get a “rational” price model (though the printer price is still heavily discounted based on toner sales until you get to the several thousand dollar mark.)
Also, this thing about laser printers not having nozzle cleaning is quite a misunderstanding. Actually laser printers waste a lot of toner - the toner that falls off the drum during the print cycle. That’s why either the cartridges have a big waste collection tank built in (cheap HP/Canon engine) or there is a collection tray for waste toner. One of the most annoying designs ever was surely the OKI that had the waste tray integrated with the belt, which meant a perfectly good belt had to be scrapped when the waste decided it was full.
The shorter the document printed, the bigger the waste. Typical toner usage is quoted for 5% coverage and documents 3 sides and over. If you print a lot of 1 or 2 pagers, lasers are not economical compared to business inkjets (HP, Epson make good ones.) And business inkjets are a great deal more environmentally friendly in terms of plastic waste than are laser printers. I did a study on this some years back and the difference is quite surprising. For instance, an HP 9000 page black inkjet cartridge uses less than a quarter as much structural material as an equivalent laser.
HP has been trying for years to persuade companies of the benefits of their business inkjets, but have been shot in the foot by (a) their laser division promoting lasers and (b) the business practices of their consumer inkjets. But the fundamental argument is sound.
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I’ve never once regretted the decision I made nearly 15 years ago to stop considering a personal printer as a necessity. On the very few occasions I’ve absolutely had to print something I was able to either use a work printer or Kinkos.
The biggest reason for this decision was shitty vendor behavior like this which was already rearing its head back then. Mostly in the form of bloated, intrusive, buggy printer driver “suites”. Fuck you, HP. It doesn’t take 300 MB of compiled code to print a document.
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Don’t just throw it way! There are lot of nice parts in those. Check with your local hackers and makerspaces.
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Even beyond the anticonsumer moves, they generate SO MUCH TRASH. How many persons even buy ink these days versus moving from one terrible printer to another?
If you’re buying another shit inkjet printer to throw away and not replace it with your average home office laserjet or above, yes.
I have no clue what you’re talking about, I’ve had no issues with Canon and Brother cartridge replacements, which cost but a fraction of the price.
I can get 5+ years use out of them easily and with toner replacements nearly as long, I don’t think the comparison to low end inkjets is apt.
Sure they’re not nearly as long-life and infinitely repairable as the high end business laserjets, but the price differential is a bit too much for your average consumer.
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Actually ink-jet printers blow… 
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“Printing is in decline, thanks to mobile phones that make paper boarding passes, grocery lists, and family snapshots a thing of the past. HP’s actions are the thrashings of a desperate company in a dying industry.”
I had the epiphany that printing is a ritual we go through to signify that the recipients (eg., Bosses or Customers) are too important to be told “It’s on the project page” or “… on our website, just google it”. Are there any good reasons for printing?
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