HP wants you to pay up to $36/month to rent a printer that it monitors::“Never own a printer again.”

  • @[email protected]
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    341 year ago

    I’ll just point out that I have a 20 year old Dell business class color laser printer. Got it off Craigslist a few years ago for 40 bucks. It has Ethernet, with a webui. You can disable the toner chips if you want and only lose toner amount estimates and then use any toner you want. We even got the duplex attachment for it a few years ago.

    It is literally at least 3 feet tall and weighs at least 50 lbs.

    It literally makes all the lights in my house flick when we turn it on. We once blew a circuit when it turned on.

    We lovingly call it the Old Ding Dong Printer.

    As long as it works, why would I ever replace it? Products have gone downhill.

    • MeanEYE
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      61 year ago

      In part that’s why they keep adding these anti-consumer features. They don’t want you to buy something lasting 40 years. That said I will buy original toner when the time comes from Brother, because they deserve the income for not being assholes. I only wish they had recycling services in my country so I could keep the e-trash to a minimum.

  • @[email protected]
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    471 year ago

    Fuck HP, I will definitely never own one of their printers ever again because I have a Brother laser printer that is fucking great, never breaks, and definitely never tries to rip me off.

    • @[email protected]
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      161 year ago

      Really nice to see other people showing the brother printers love. I have a little laser printer I bought years ago at best buy when I was running a printing business and has well over a million copies on it. I no longer have the business but that printer is still working.

          • runeko
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            51 year ago

            I promote Brother because HP is so so bad. Product, business model, service. So bad. I want to save others from the nightmare of dealing with HP. I willingly exchanged my money for a good and service: a Brother printer. The $4 bil company didn’t raid my village and burn my house down. They offered me a printer at a reasonable price and I’m tired of pretending otherwise. So: Team Brother!

            • Flying Squid
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              31 year ago

              On top of that, their products work forever. Yes, I buy Brother printers. The last time I bought one was at least 20 years ago and it still works.

              How many other tech companies make hardware that lasts that long? I try to use my tech as long as possible, but 20 years? My notebook just conked out at 9 years and I was amazed it lasted that long.

  • Fat Tony
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    281 year ago

    At this point I know I will never buy a printer, period.

    • Dark Arc
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      281 year ago

      Get a black and white laser printer from brother… It’s all you ever really “need”

      • @[email protected]
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        81 year ago

        That’s what I got, years later still haven’t changed the ink and it runs smoothly. Not sure whose buying HP

          • @[email protected]
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            21 year ago

            That’s what happened to me. Needed a printer in the middle of covid, ASAP. Nothing I researched was there, so I had a limited time to just pick a printer. Hmmm, this HP seems ok…

            3 months later, there was no way I used all the ink. WTF. Go to buy more, and thats when I realized my mistake. !@#☆$%^&*

        • @[email protected]
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          141 year ago

          People who don’t keep up with things like this, which is honestly a lot of people. I was the electronics guys at walmart for years. Just quit a few months back. So many people would be stunned when I tell them about all the bullshit HP pulls. And so many more would hit me with ‘well ive heard good things’ and buy it anyways.

              • Epzillon
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                21 year ago

                You know, I think this is one of those “some people just want to get scammed” moments.

                • @[email protected]
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                  1 year ago

                  That’s a whole other can of worms. I would get so many old fucks coming in for gift cards, mostly iTunes of course, and when the amount seemed fishy I would ask what it was for and, predictably, quite often it was some obvious bullshit. some would believe me right away, some would take some convincing, some would get mad. I remember one in particular called me a ‘fucking moron who doesn’t know shit’ and insisted i sell him the 1k iTunes so he could pay is taxes. Had fun selling that one.

                  Others really stick out though. I had more then a few of the ‘love scams’ over the years. The military online BF who was discharged but has to pay his own trip home. This one in particualar is gonna stick with me till the day I die. She was there with a friend, and when i brought up how obvious the bullshit was, her friend was like ‘SEE!?’ We talked to her about this for a half hour or so before she believed us and holy fuck did she break down.

          • Dark Arc
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            11 year ago

            To be fair it’s always a crapshoot whether the person at Walmart or BestBuy or wherever really knows their stuff or just has a personal bias.

            Sounds like you’re doing good by folks but for a lot of people you’re going to have an uphill credibility battle mostly because they don’t know you.

            I’m a professional software engineer that has done all sorts of things involving computers over the years … I’ll always hear people out and some do have some genuinely great advice/say things I would’ve said if somebody asked me (and almost definitely aren’t getting paid what they’re worth by these places). Others are just kinda blowing smoke … and I fear for the customers that listen to them lol.

            • @[email protected]
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              21 year ago

              lol don’t get me started on the stupid shit i heard from my coworkers. one time I was just coming back from break and this new girl had been helping a customer while I was gone. They had just finished up the sale.

              How do I get photopshop on this?

              Oh it will have an app store.

              IT WAS A FUCKING MONITOR

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        I picked up an Epson eco tank printer for my wife a couple years ago, and it’s been fantastic! My wife, being a kindergarten teacher has a knack for absolutely killing printers… And this little Epson has been a work horse!!! I have nothing but good things to say about it!

    • Corhen
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      31 year ago

      just get a small laser printer. i got a Pantum Laser Printer, on sale, for like $40. Its on its 3rd refill after years and years of heavy printing for my wife while in school.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      Costs $.10 to print at the library.

      I’m fortunate to have a library just down the street so I go over there.

      I also don’t have to print anything very often so I’ve only had to do that a couple of times in as many years.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 year ago

        My library offers $7 worth of printing free each week with your Library. I am curious how many households actually still have printers these days.

        • Flying Squid
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          11 year ago

          The public library here (and it’s far from alone) offers free B&W and color laser printing, free large format printing and free 3D printing. Libraries are awesome.

          (I am married to one of the library’s administrators, so I may be slightly biased, but really, go check out your local library.)

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    1 - buy one of those refillable ink tank printers that are now actually common and not expensive;

    2 - buy ink bottles at aliexpress for $10 4x200ml ink or around that;

    3 - years of ink for a few bucks.

    If you have a cartridge printer, search on aliexpress for refillable cartridges for your printer and do step 2 anyway (you can usually refill those easily with a seringe).

    Don’t feed their greed.

  • Flying Squid
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    201 year ago

    Even the low end is insane. $8 a month for 20 pages? You can go to a place like Staples or FedEx Office with a USB drive and get that printed out for less than a dollar.

    • rustydomino
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      61 year ago

      In a lot of densely populated Asian cities, you can print to the shared printer of a local convenience store through the network without bringing a USB drive. You submit the job, it gets stored in the queue of the device, you go to the store (usually just downstairs from your apartment), scan a QR code, and the job prints. You can even pay online - it’s great!

    • @[email protected]
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      111 year ago

      It’s actually 20c per page for about 4 bucks. Then there is tax for another 40c then 35c of gas and possibly 15 minutes of your time over and over and over again.

      The right answer is a black and white laser. spend $199 once in the next 10-15 years

      • Twitches
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        21 year ago

        This is what we did, sometimes we print, sometimes we don’t, toner doesn’t dry. Multi function 200 dollars. So far 5 years later, off brand toner and all is well.

  • FlavoredButtHair
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    241 year ago

    I wouldn’t pay half that if it was the only source to feed HP employees. Fuck HP in the ass with a gasoline soaked pickle.

  • @[email protected]
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    271 year ago

    I bought a Brother laser printer some years back for like $120 and am still working on the starter toner cartridge. HP can fuck right off with this.

    • Flying Squid
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      71 year ago

      My laser printer is so old that it’s USB 1.0.

      It’s on its second toner cartridge and I have no plans to get rid of it.

    • NutWrench
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      1 year ago

      Same here. BW Brother printer and I can get 3 toner cartridges for about $25. At about a dozen pages a day, those cartridges last me a whole year.

  • @[email protected]
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    101 year ago

    $36 a month for something I would use maybe 2 or 3 times a year? That’s $432 I would pay for those 2-3 prints. Subscription based printer accessibility (not ownership) is a lossing strategy for normies like me. Maybe it may work for b2b segment. Aslo, Fuck you, HP. Thanks for convincing me not to buy your other products.

  • @[email protected]
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    111 year ago

    How out of touch is HP? Every year I print less than the previous year. The use case for printers is dwindling. I lived quite happily without a printer for a decade. They need to find another business.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      Let’s not let them find another business to ruin… Stick with printers and fade into obscurity please HP :)

  • @[email protected]
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    101 year ago

    I still own a HP laser printer (older model from 5-10 years ago) which does not have the online connectivity requirement and the third party cartridges could last for ages.

    As long as the printer dies I will forget HP and its bullshit exists and never touch their products again.

  • @[email protected]
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    1361 year ago

    But HP enforces an Internet connection by having its TOS also state that HP may disrupt the service—and continue to charge you for it—if your printer’s not online.

    HP says it enforces a constant connection so that the company can monitor things that make sense for the subscription, like ink cartridge statuses, page count, and “to prevent unauthorized use of Your account.” However, HP will also remotely monitor the type of documents (for example, a PDF or JPEG) printed, the devices and software used to initiate the print job, “peripheral devices,” and any other “metrics” that HP thinks are related to the subscription and decides to add to its remote monitoring.

    The All-In-Plan privacy policy also says that HP may “transfer information about you to advertising partners” so that they can “recognize your devices,” perform targeted advertising, and, potentially, “combine information about you with information from other companies in data sharing cooperatives” that HP participates in. The policy says that users can opt out of sharing personal data.

    The All-In-Plan TOS reads:

    Subject to the terms of this Agreement, You hereby grant to HP a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free right to use, copy, store, transmit, modify, create derivative works of and display Your non-personal data for its business purposes.

    My god, it’s so bad