HP wants more of your money

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1_rick

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"HP wants you to pay up to $36/month to rent a printer that it monitors"
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/

They'll rent you a printer and ink, starting at $6 for 20 pages a month. This is like old-school cell phone contracts, with a 2-year minimum and an early termination fee. Your printer has to be connected to the internet all the time so they can monitor it.
HP launched a subscription service today that rents people a printer, allots them a specific amount of printed pages, and sends them ink for a monthly fee. HP is framing its service as a way to simplify printing for families and small businesses, but the deal also comes with monitoring and a years-long commitment.

Prices range from $6.99 per month for a plan that includes an HP Envy printer (the current model is the 6020e) and 20 printed pages. The priciest plan includes an HP OfficeJet Pro rental and 700 printed pages for $35.99 per month.

HP says it will provide subscribers with ink deliveries when they're running low and 24/7 support via phone or chat (although it's dubious how much you want to rely on HP support). Support doesn't include on or offsite repairs or part replacements. The subscription's terms of service (TOS) note that the service doesn't cover damage or failure caused by, unsurprisingly, "use of non-HP media supplies and other products" or if you use your printer more than what your plan calls for.
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We can thank Elon Musk for pioneering this "over the air" controlled monetizing that started with Tesla about a decade ago. Everytime you see a Tesla driver quietly say "sucker" nice and slow with a smile on your face seeing if they can read your lips haha 😂
 
And here I am with a 20-year-old HP Laserjet that "just works" (including a toner cartridge that's going on 8 years old by now) wondering why I'd want any of this crap. Thanks, but I'll put up with needing to plug in a USB cable to not have to deal with any of this. Even their cheapest plan would have cost $1700 at this point for the usage I've gotten out of the 1020.
 
The dealer always wins. Modern printers suck, and not only HP, all of them. They run out of ink if you even look at them funny.
 
I subscribe to Instant Ink. I'll explain my reasoning.

In the past I had always bought Epson printers because I like their multi functions. But I kept running into issues where the print heads would get clogged and of course they don't sell replacement's, so I went through 4 printers in about 20 years. When my last one failed, I figured I would switch to HP multi function that includes the print head in the cartridge so that is always refreshed when the ink is swapped.

Now, because I print so infrequently, my prior experience with buying Ink is the ink goes bad before I fully use it all up. I buy the lowest tier of Instant Ink which is now $1.50 (was .99 when I signed up) and the price of HP ink is around $40-45 or so. I figure I'd have to "buy" a new ink cartridge ever 2.5-3 years to break even, which is about how frequently I was buying ink before. At least with Instant Ink, if something screws up with the cartridge, I just ask them to send a new one instead of buying a new one. Since I never go over the page limit with rollover, the cost to me is the same as what I was paying before but have a little extra guarantee that I don't have to buy new ink if the cartridge gets messed up, which has happened.
 
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Are we getting unlimited ink in the near future?

My last HP was 20+ years ago and looks like it will continue.
 
M76 said:
The dealer always wins. Modern printers suck, and not only HP, all of them. They run out of ink if you even look at them funny.
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I used to repair printers back in the 1990's and early 2000's. I've got news for you, most printers were crap back in those days. Inkjet printers were certainly much better than they are today, but they were still garbage. It's a garbage technology. It's only benefit is that its cheap. The reason why inkjets were more reliable back then was that the print nozzles were much larger than they are on modern printers. They are harder to clog and you can subject them to a few test prints and often clear them. On these super small DPI inkjets, the smallest dried drop of ink results in the print head being effectively trashed. You used to be able to clean print heads with larger nozzles more easily too. You just can't do that with these higher resolution ones.
bigdogchris said:
I subscribe to Instant Ink. I'll explain my reasoning.

In the past I had always bought Epson printers because I like their multi functions. But I kept running into issues where the print heads would get clogged and of course they don't sell replacement's, so I went through 4 printers in about 20 years. When my last one failed, I figured I would switch to HP multi function that includes the print head in the cartridge so that is always refreshed when the ink is swapped.
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This is why I always liked HP printers back in the day. The quality of all of them has declined over the years but at least when you buy a new ink cartridge, you replace the part that's most likely to fail. The print head. They have the same philosophy with their laser printers as the photosensitive drum is probably the most common thing to fail in most printers. HP includes it in the toner cartridge. So when a cartridge gets replaced you get a new one every time. Their fusors are modular. No one else gives you a modular fusor. It too fails eventually. In fact, its a consumable part.
bigdogchris said:
Now, because I print so infrequently, my prior experience with buying Ink is the ink goes bad before I fully use it all up. I buy the lowest tier of Instant Ink which is now $1.50 (was .99 when I signed up) and the price of HP ink is around $40-45 or so. I figure I'd have to "buy" a new ink cartridge ever 2.5-3 years to break even, which is about how frequently I was buying ink before. At least with Instant Ink, if something screws up with the cartridge, I just ask them to send a new one instead of buying a new one. Since I never go over the page limit with rollover limit, the cost to me is the same as what I was paying before but have a little extra guarantee that I don't have to buy new ink if the cartridge gets messed up, which has happened.
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Inkjet type systems are the worst for people who print infrequently. At least with the HP printers, you get a new print head every time. Though there are others that sell print heads separately, the cost is much higher. Epson for example doesn't sell them to end users at all.

I have a Samsung laser printer I paid like $200 for. It's nearly 10 years old now. I print once or twice a year. I have no real investment in it if it shits the bed and I'm still on my original toner cartridge.
 
Dan_D said:
I have a Samsung laser printer I paid like $200 for. It's nearly 10 years old now. I print once or twice a year. I have no real investment in it if it shits the bed and I'm still on my original toner cartridge.
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I had a Samsung laser for a short time as well about 10 years ago but I ended up selling it. It didn't have a bypass tray or do well with envelopes and I like having a scanner on the unit.

I certainly agree for anyone who does any decent volume of printing, using laser printers or the newer style tank printers is the way to go. And with Instant Ink, the issues with low volume printing doesn't matter because you just have them send you a new one. But yeah, if you only print 10 pages a year and have to buy new ink every couple years it's not a good setup.
 
I personally blame razor blades and their subscription and quality reduction shenanigans. Became the dream model for so many other companies. Then convince everyone you aren't sexy unless you shave everything so you sell more blades lol.
 
Dan_D said:
I used to repair printers back in the 1990's and early 2000's. I've got news for you, most printers were crap back in those days. Inkjet printers were certainly much better than they are today, but they were still garbage. It's a garbage technology. It's only benefit is that its cheap. The reason why inkjets were more reliable back then was that the print nozzles were much larger than they are on modern printers. They are harder to clog and you can subject them to a few test prints and often clear them. On these super small DPI inkjets, the smallest dried drop of ink results in the print head being effectively trashed. You used to be able to clean print heads with larger nozzles more easily too. You just can't do that with these higher resolution ones.
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Early printers were terrible, but there was a short period in the mid 2000s when inkjet printers became too good. As in so good, that manufacturers decided to make them worse otherwise ppl will never buy a new one again. I've been using the same printer for almost 20 years. It always worked even when not using it for months. You could say I got lucky, but then I got lucky twice as I had two, different models both worked. One of them was in storage for years after I moved, and when I took it out it worked like it did before after a simple cleaning. And they never ran out of ink after printing 5 pages like modern ones from the same brand. Someone took apart a modern ink cartridge to see how much ink is in it actually and there was literally nothing in it but a sponge that was slightly wet with ink. The old ones had actual measurable liquid ink in them.
 
[Ion] said:
And here I am with a 20-year-old HP Laserjet that "just works" (including a toner cartridge that's going on 8 years old by now) wondering why I'd want any of this crap. Thanks, but I'll put up with needing to plug in a USB cable to not have to deal with any of this. Even their cheapest plan would have cost $1700 at this point for the usage I've gotten out of the 1020.
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That 20 year old HP is "the past". New HP printers are cheap plastic junk. Hold onto that old maintainable printer.
 
bigdogchris said:
I subscribe to Instant Ink. I'll explain my reasoning.
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I mean, if it makes sense financially, I suppose it's fine. I realized I have almost no need to print color, so I avoid the whole "print head clogging" thing by not using inkjets.
 
I have a Epson Eco Tank printer I print out Comic Book Covers from ebay it's so cheap to do with glossy photo paper. If a Paul Green Comic shows up on ebay I can print out the same thing for cents.
 
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M76 said:
Early printers were terrible, but there was a short period in the mid 2000s when inkjet printers became too good. As in so good, that manufacturers decided to make them worse otherwise ppl will never buy a new one again. I've been using the same printer for almost 20 years. It always worked even when not using it for months. You could say I got lucky, but then I got lucky twice as I had two, different models both worked. One of them was in storage for years after I moved, and when I took it out it worked like it did before after a simple cleaning. And they never ran out of ink after printing 5 pages like modern ones from the same brand. Someone took apart a modern ink cartridge to see how much ink is in it actually and there was literally nothing in it but a sponge that was slightly wet with ink. The old ones had actual measurable liquid ink in them.
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I used to work in a service center repairing printers in the late 1990's and early 2000's. The fact is, the decline was already in full swing back then. We saw a sharp decline compared to the units of the late 1990's. Regardless, Inkjet was always a flawed technology whos only benefit was low cost to manufacturer.
cjcox said:
That 20 year old HP is "the past". New HP printers are cheap plastic junk. Hold onto that old maintainable printer.
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Even that one isn't really maintainable. None of the inkjets were even back then. The only thing that allows those to keep working is the integration of the print head with the ink cartridge. Of course, there were higher end models like the HP Deskjet 2000 which have a separate print head and ink cartridge, but the print heads are still user serviceable. Older units like the HP Deskjet 820, etc. actually have little in the way of electronics so there is nothing in them aside from the mechanical bits. They are basically like winmodems and are all driver based. Though I doubt he's talking about that model. The 830, etc. were the better ones.

None of them are as durable and well build as the Deskjet 500 from the late 1990's. Anything else was worse do to cost cutting. That's a low res printer by modern standards, and again that's where the problem comes in as ink nozzles shrunk to produce higher DPI images. They became more prone to fouling.
 
1_rick said:
That's why so many of use user laser printers.
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Been there, done that. Those have different problems. First and foremost abysmal quality. ok if you only print black and white documents, but forget it if you want photos.
 
Dan_D said:
I used to work in a service center repairing printers in the late 1990's and early 2000's. The fact is, the decline was already in full swing back then. We saw a sharp decline compared to the units of the late 1990's.
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Mechanically there may have been cost cutting using lesser materials and plastic internals instead of metal, but the print quality and print reliability sharply increased. My 2004 inkjet could produce photo quality that still holds up today, I don't need or want better.
Dan_D said:
Regardless, Inkjet was always a flawed technology whos only benefit was low cost to manufacturer.
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Compared to what? Because laser printers are still useless at photo and graphics, they are only really suitable for text. And there is no other mainstream technology. I'd much rather deal with the quirks of inkjets than settle for laser printer quaity.
 
M76 said:
Someone took apart a modern ink cartridge to see how much ink is in it actually and there was literally nothing in it but a sponge that was slightly wet with ink. The old ones had actual measurable liquid ink in them.
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Big Clive used one of those things--I can't think of the word at the moment--it's like an insulin needle but no needle, and you can suck up liquids with it--on an inkjet cartridge and found it actually had more less the claimed amount in it, but it is suspended in the sponge, so you need to actually do something to get it out of that to be able to measure it.

Epson cartridges, video was released 4 months ago:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iak5vnkTdY
 
M76 said:
Mechanically there may have been cost cutting using lesser materials and plastic internals instead of metal, but the print quality and print reliability sharply increased. My 2004 inkjet could produce photo quality that still holds up today, I don't need or want better.

Compared to what? Because laser printers are still useless at photo and graphics, they are only really suitable for text. And there is no other mainstream technology. I'd much rather deal with the quirks of inkjets than settle for laser printer quaity.
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Well, there are quality laser printers that do a great job. Xerox Phaser units back in the day could do better quality than any inkjet of the time. (I supported an actual print shop back then.) Unfortunately, the quality laser printers that can do decent photos aren't the cheap ones. You also get into differences in the actual paper you use and laser pretty much works on anything, where as you can get bleeding on paper with an injket.

Dye sublimation was also vastly superior to either. It was horribly expensive per page, but those images had absolutely no equal at the time.
 
I'm fortunate that the company I work for has a pair of decent production-level printers. I only need to print something 1-2 times per year and it comes in handy in those instances. Otherwise I'd probably just go to a FedEx office location and pay way too much for the same thing.
 
Almost all my copiers are on full service contracts $0.02 per B&W, $0.08 per colour up to the first 100,000 pages a month then it goes up from there. (CAD)

But that comes with toner and techs, I know there is some economy to scale for larger hardware being cheaper to operate but $0.30 per page is too much, 0.20 per full colour and 0.05 for B&W maybe??

Could be OK for small and medium business depending on the service options but consumer… maybe??? If it comes with hardware guarantees.
 
Lakados said:
Almost all my copiers are on full service contracts $0.02 per B&W, $0.08 per colour up to the first 100,000 pages a month then it goes up from there. (CAD)

But that comes with toner and techs, I know there is some economy to scale for larger hardware being cheaper to operate but $0.30 per page is too much, 0.20 per full colour and 0.05 for B&W maybe??

Could be OK for small and medium business depending on the service options but consumer… maybe??? If it comes with hardware guarantees.
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Any business with large volume printer needs should really look into this route versus maintaining their own systems.
 
xDiVolatilX said:
We can thank Elon Musk for pioneering this "over the air" controlled monetizing that started with Tesla about a decade ago. Everytime you see a Tesla driver quietly say "sucker" nice and slow with a smile on your face seeing if they can read your lips haha 😂
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I think inkjet cartridges have had DRM longer ago than that.
 
Dan_D said:
I used to repair printers back in the 1990's and early 2000's. I've got news for you, most printers were crap back in those days. Inkjet printers were certainly much better than they are today, but they were still garbage. It's a garbage technology. It's only benefit is that its cheap. The reason why inkjets were more reliable back then was that the print nozzles were much larger than they are on modern printers. They are harder to clog and you can subject them to a few test prints and often clear them. On these super small DPI inkjets, the smallest dried drop of ink results in the print head being effectively trashed. You used to be able to clean print heads with larger nozzles more easily too. You just can't do that with these higher resolution ones.

This is why I always liked HP printers back in the day. The quality of all of them has declined over the years but at least when you buy a new ink cartridge, you replace the part that's most likely to fail. The print head. They have the same philosophy with their laser printers as the photosensitive drum is probably the most common thing to fail in most printers. HP includes it in the toner cartridge. So when a cartridge gets replaced you get a new one every time. Their fusors are modular. No one else gives you a modular fusor. It too fails eventually. In fact, its a consumable part.

Inkjet type systems are the worst for people who print infrequently. At least with the HP printers, you get a new print head every time. Though there are others that sell print heads separately, the cost is much higher. Epson for example doesn't sell them to end users at all.

I have a Samsung laser printer I paid like $200 for. It's nearly 10 years old now. I print once or twice a year. I have no real investment in it if it shits the bed and I'm still on my original toner cartridge.
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I switch to Canon inkjet printers that used dye inks as opposed to pigment inks. Pigment ink cartridges always seemed to clog for me if I didn't print a lot. After switching to dye based printers I didn't have the same clogging problem.

The issue with dye inks is that they usually fade faster than pigment inks if you don't use a swellable polymer paper.
 
sadsteve said:
I think inkjet cartridges have had DRM longer ago than that.
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Refusing to print because it’s detected an unofficial cartridge has been a thing since the early 2000’s.
Ruining your printer because you got a shitty unofficial cartridge has been a thing since about forever.
 
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Dan_D said:
Well, there are quality laser printers that do a great job.
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Not in the consumer price range, even the cheapests color printers cost three times as much as an inkjet, and the toner is even more expensive. My father used to have a Konica color laser printer, and it was a nightmare even before it clunked in 3 or 4 years.
Dan_D said:
Xerox Phaser units back in the day could do better quality than any inkjet of the time. (I supported an actual print shop back then.) Unfortunately, the quality laser printers that can do decent photos aren't the cheap ones. You also get into differences in the actual paper you use and laser pretty much works on anything, where as you can get bleeding on paper with an injket.

Dye sublimation was also vastly superior to either. It was horribly expensive per page, but those images had absolutely no equal at the time.
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Even my work could only afford a monochrome large format laser printer, we used inkjet plotters for anything that needed color. For home use inkjet is much more practical than laser. At least they used to be before greed ruined it.
 
Gen Z doesn't even know what a printer is and this is HP's response? They are going to have to pay a generation to even use one soon. When I say I have a printer at home, I get lots of looks but at least it's not an HP.
 
It does seem a bit wasteful to have a printer replacement program every 2 years. I think when you factor in failure rate most printers are not failing after 2 years. Just creating a lot of e-waste. They're just giving people a new device every 2 years to "make it worth it" since you are spending that much every 2 years anyways.
 
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Since i am the idiot IT guy for the family i have ordered all HP printers to be thrown away and to be replaced with Epson ones that have the big tank.

HP: -3
Epson:+3
 
bigdogchris said:
It does seem a bit wasteful to have a printer replacement program. Yeah you get a new printer every 2 years, but I think when you factor in failure rate most printers are not failing after 2 years. Just creating a lot of e-waste.
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Yes and no... Given the huge increases expected to be seen this year in basic electronic part costs due to changes in carbon emission rules and energy credit regulations getting back components while they are still serviceable could be a huge win long term.
 
Lakados said:
Yes and no... Given the huge increases expected to be seen this year in basic electronic part costs due to changes in carbon emission rules and energy credit regulations getting back components while they are still serviceable could be a huge win long term.
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I suspect this will be the hottest the Earth has ever been due to the mild Winter and 50 degree weather last week. Carbon emissions regulations won't have any effect on the Green house effect because 3rd world countries ignore them.
 
Comixbooks said:
I suspect this will be the hottest the Earth has ever been due to the mild Winter and 50 degree weather last week. Carbon emissions regulations won't have any effect on the Green house effect because 3rd world countries ignore them.
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Either way, the base materials that make up PCB and most electrical components are expected to double this year, and they still haven't come down from the COVID pricing for the most part.
The big companies that make the capacitors, MOSFETs, and VRMs are expected to cut production back to match the material cost increases which will in turn increase the prices for the components as supply is dramatically decreased.
Mining output is also expected to decrease as refineries cut back and blah blah blah.

And yeah I live in a valley normally we have 4-6' a snowpack, but right now we have maybe 6". I've already started loading up on inhalers because my asthma is gonna be bad this year.
 
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