For those of you who haven't already, I highly recommend just biting the bullet and switching from HP to Brother for your home printing needs.<p>I was a HP customer for <i>decades</i>. I had models going back to perforated paper dot-matrix printers. Finally last year I had a down-and-out fight to get my HP to do a basic task, and I bit the bullet and ordered a Brother at the recommendation of my friend.<p>My mfc-l3750cdw Brother printer is a bit of a beast, but it does it's job amazingly well. It's 2x the size, weight, and price of my old HP but it's worth every penny for the peace of mind. It prints when I need it to print. It shuts down when it's not printing. It connects to wifi and doesn't try to serve me an ad while doing it. It uses ink logically. And I don't feel like I'm trying to resolve a problem that was effectively solved in 1995.<p>The hard fact is that printers and copiers as a market has been shrinking (outside of China) for years now [1]. It's gone from a necessity to a niche need, and even then people have kinkos / WeWork / their parents house as a backup.<p>HP isn't going back, just switch. Save yourself like I did.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/consumer-electronics/computing/printers-copiers/united-states" rel="nofollow">https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/consumer-electronics/co...</a>
What I find notable whenever something like this is in the news, is that these user-hostile features don't just manifest through abiogenesis, or spontaneous generation.<p>User-hostile features are created by people.<p>Just once, I would like to see an AMA by someone who was directly involved in creating a user-hostile feature - whether it's locking down printers or any of the countless other examples that come up on a weekly basis. (Being careful to make a throwaway account and obfuscate any particulars, of course).<p>I would like to know, direct from the horse's mouth (and not from bike-shed bystanders), what goes on in the heads of the people who make these kinds of features.<p>Do you just treat it as a source of income, with it not meriting any real internal ethical debate? ("Who cares, these are printers, not chemical weapons")<p>Do you attempt to justify designing the features somehow? ("If people want to use HP printers, they should use HP cartridges")<p>Really, I just want to understand why other people engage in behaviors which are explicitly designed to inconvenience, if not outright harm, other people. I have my own theories of course, but I really want to hear it from the people involved.
What's amazing about all it is that HP being hostile to its own customers is nothing new:<p>- In 2005, they had one printer that refused to print if the cartridge was past a certain date, even if full. Several also underestimated the volume of ink in cartridges and told you it was empty when not.<p>- In 2007, HP refused to honor hardware warranty if you install any other OS on their laptop.<p>- in 2010, HP refused to provide drivers for the new windows Vista for its old ScanJet scanners (linux worked fine though).<p>- in 2020 they hardcoded the path to the EFI of their laptop to be windows only.<p>That's just the examples I could easily google, I remember that HP was having one scandal every 6 months in 2000, and we didn't have twitter back then.<p>So if a brand has been very publicly misbehaving for 2 decades, how does it still have customers?<p>Well, Facebook has still a billion users. Microsoft is now considered the father of unicorns and rainbows. Oracle is still making banks, one of my biggest client just migrated to it.<p>So the so-called cancel culture seems very superficial to me: lots of noise, but very actual consumer behavioral change. The brands can get away with anything and thrive. Maybe they'll get a little bit of heat for a few months on social media, so what?<p>But the bottom line is: if you are a big company, just do whatever makes you money. You don't need reputation.
For home network printing, one way to get around such nonsense it to set a wrong gateway ip to the printer. This way, your printer is still detectable on LAN network, while it can never connect to WAN (or internet) to update any firmware
I've got an Epson Ecotank ET-7750 and really like it. (I'm kind of partial to wide format printers because schematics printed on them are easier on the eyes).<p>That said, a really interesting startup would be an open source inkjet printer. (All the necessary patents have expired ones that are current revolve mostly around cartridges or cleaning systems). I suspect it is a kind of niche market as my kids tell me that "nobody prints things, we have it on our phone!" which I kind of understand, but point out you don't need multiple monitors to do code development if you have listing printed out :-).
If you have a modern HP printer that currently works fine, and you want to delay buying a different brand, you might want to:<p>1. be using open source drivers (e.g., one of the CUPS PCL drivers, preferably on Linux or BSD) on all possible clients;<p>2. isolate the printer from direct network access (e.g., don't connect printer's Ethernet or WiFi, and instead run CUPS on a RasPi, which talks to the printer only via USB); and<p>3. consider limiting which devices can access your print server (i.e., via routing VLANs and/or authentication/authorization).<p>This isn't perfect:<p>* there are still ways that the printer can get firmware changes against your wishes;<p>* still ways that it can leak information to HP;<p>* still ways it's vulnerable to attacks by others; and<p>* might be awkward to explain when a visitor to your home/office needs to print something.<p>But I decided the headache of isolating the HP printer a bit (especially from HP), was less than the likely headache of trusting HP more.<p>(Which is kinda sad, since the company previously known as HP was great.)
17 mentions of Ecotank on the 1st page of comments is a little bit sus. That said it's hard to beat older pre chip Brother laser printers for home use. Can often find a used one for around $50.
The cat-and-mouse game escalates one more step...<p>Who remembers the Epson chip resetters? Those were glorified EEPROM writers and the chips on cartridges back then were simple EEPROMs. (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054177" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054177</a> )<p>Now, I believe there's nontrivial crypto involved; but just like other attempts at locking them out, expect the aftermarket to already be hard at work cracking this. It's probably legal to do so, according to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v._Static_Control_Components,_Inc" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v....</a>.
I'm honestly a bit confused by the comments.<p>I've had and installed only 5 home printers over my entire life (excluding professional printers at works)<p>One was an already refurbished dinosaur from Xerox.
1 was a canon (would have to look for the model).
The other 3 are HP LaserJet 100 Color MFP M175nw.<p>All 5 have lasted over 10 years, the MFPs being the youngest at 12 years.
That Xerox one was still going with after 20, it was just slow. And 1 of the HPs may be replaced for that reason, as apparently waiting 20s for a page is now too long for my family members, which I can't fathom for a single page of paper once in a while.<p>Not a single technical issue with any of these.<p>Not a huge test sample, but that makes me wonder:<p>1/ What do you people do with their printers?<p>During the most active period, I printed about 2000 pages / year, which was already too much, and was mostly because of the kids when they were younger and when someone I knew had to deal with a lot of paperwork with an administration, and maybe one year when finishing my studies where I printed a crap load of reports.<p>2/ What's the failure rate on these things??<p>3/ When did we decide that "over a decade" is an achievement to be noteworthy for any piece of equipment worth a decent amount of money?<p>EDIT: My only gripe was the disappearance of ChromePrint. That bugged me quite a bit. Unrelated to the printers, though. Those MFPs work fine with HP Print, default print drivers, CUPS, etc... on Windows/Mac/Linux/Android/iOS.
I'm amazed that this hasn't been regulated. Aftermarket commodities being turned into walled gardens based not on physical incompatibility but software checks is obscene.<p>Does the EU have defenses against this kind of behavior? I feel like monopolistic is the wrong word. Creating captive markets?
How does this work with anti competition?<p>The Sherman Antitrust Act would prohibit printer manufacturers from engaging in anti-competitive practices such as locking out third-party printer cartridges. Under the law, monopolistic or anti-competitive practices are illegal and may be subject to government enforcement.<p>To quote the sherman act
"Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal" (Shermanj Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 1).<p>Sherman anti trust act:
<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act</a><p><a href="https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws" rel="nofollow">https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...</a>
Fwiw even their Android App has gone from Meh to Worse.
It used to work well. Then they introduced mandatory user sign up/in. For local printing/scanning! And then started the white screen bugs.
HP Smart is the only app on my Android that i pinned to a very old version and am never upgrading.
HP printers are dreadful. Six years ago, I switched from my HP to a Brother HL-L2395DW, and I haven't turned back since. Have no more issues printing, jamming, installing bloated drivers, establishing a Wi-Fi connection, or obtaining third-party toner for it. The drum life is still at 98%.
This news story could be a massive ad for something like <a href="https://www.epson.com.au/v2/ecotank/" rel="nofollow">https://www.epson.com.au/v2/ecotank/</a> , which came up in the Reddit thread. I saw there (Porcomaster's reply) that you can get good third party ink as well, so that's really complete freedom which deserves being celebrated in contrast to HP.<p>I'm on an old Epson Artisan cartridge based printer currently for colour photos, but want to replace it as they are just too painful and expensive. So meanwhile I have a cheap Brother laser printer for my black and white printing, which TBH is great for the occasional use. It's on an ultra low power sleep mode most of the time, and comes to life when it needs to.
Speaking of YC funding disruption where are the home printer startups?<p>Is it just that unprofitable to even try? Or the hardware too difficult or tricky? Or the driver software?<p>Seems like there are zero good alternatives for home printing.<p>HP doing this stuff or making you subscribe to HP+.<p>Brother offering basically zero support.<p>Is epson or canon even competitive for a home printer?
The HP Smart app actually has a disclaimer mentioning 'non-OEM cartridges might be disabled if you install the firmware update'<p><a href="https://i.imgur.com/Xp4tElX.png" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/Xp4tElX.png</a><p>Apparently some printers can be downgraded via USB<p><a href="https://lucatnt.com/2022/06/downgrade-hp-pagewide-pro-477dw-firmware-to-fix-cartridge-drm/" rel="nofollow">https://lucatnt.com/2022/06/downgrade-hp-pagewide-pro-477dw-...</a>
I recently looked at upgrading my two laser printers to models that were ethernet and wifi. I got burned so badly by Epson and Inkjet I'll never look at that technology again.<p>Got the shock of my life at wifi printer hardware prices. Expensive.<p>I've an ancient, tank like, Dell 5120cn that I bought new from Noahs Ark or was it eBay in 2005ish?
Its lifetime page count has only just exceeded its monthly duty cycle. It will not die. A set of mfg. CMYB toners costs under $100 if purchased carefully. That's once every 3 years or so.<p>The back up laser is a donkey slow but reliable HP laser jet 2605dn. Solid, dependable. It was donated to me, free with a 1200 page count. The mfg. toner prices are still steep, so I avoid, and go for 3rd party cartridges. A set of CMYB is $60. I've only just put one set in since 2010.<p>I'll use these lasers till they or I die. Or I forget their lan IP address. Wifi connectivity is for the very rich.<p>I'm of the opinion that if printer manufacturers in the EU try pulling any 'use only my ink or toner' stunts they'll be facing a very very expensive showdown with Brussels or Strasbourg.
Take a peek at the expansive 120+ executive staff of Hewlett Packard IPG.<p>Somebody needs more consumer money to pay for all that salary (cows). So, of course, they would need to milk that skinny cow even harder while making it look prettier with a lipstick. Even has a leash (software) that is too long and cumbersome to manage.<p>Never mind how anemic these "cows" look, they're light and still functional even when infested with bloated features that often contract virus and bacteria.<p>They'll keep on flogging these "cows" until it looks like a "horse", but just plain non-functional, stomach-bloated, back-arched, and ... dead.<p>These exec team probably knows no soul worth saving and should not be considered an asset for your budding garage company, lest they become available on labor market.<p>I am an old foggity whose dreams comprise of hardy folks that started these businesses out of their own home garage and a pair of ungrounded outlets.<p>To my garage-aspired brothers, stick with a Brothers and you can do no wrong as I've slowly replaced all my HPs with Brothers over last 2 decades.<p>- former faithful but disillusioned 48-year user of Hewlett Packard printers, former then roommate of former Epson device driver developer, and a device driver maintainer of the wonderful Xerox 1200 "laser" since 1987.<p><a href="https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/executive-team/team.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/executive-team/team....</a>
Here in small bakery office we was happy with simple HP 1018/1020/1022 and didn't wanted <i>anything</i> more featureful. Or crapfull. But sometimes they
stop printing - usually with new cups update. So after 20 years back and forth (with trips to Brother and Epson) we will switch to plain dumb Postscript printers (not as dumb as win printers) - just: lpr docname And it will <i>not</i> be HP.
So I needed a new printer last year and went to the local Best Buy and picked up a reasonably priced HP printer. I got HP cartridges from Amazon. When I tried to install the cartridges, the printer kept saying they were not genuine or there was some other problem. I thought maybe Amazon seller duped me into buying counterfeits so I went to the Best Buy store where I bought the printer from and bought the 'original' HP cartridges they sell. But the printer would not accept even those so I called Best Buy geek squad folks and they asked me to bring the printer in. Best Buy folks tried several different HP original cartridges and one of them finally worked, no one knows why. Best Buy folks were apologetic and gave me a full refund on the printer and the cartridges and I swore never to buy HP printers again. Pretty happy with my Canon printer.
I had a trusty Bother MFC for years. It recently broke and I was looking around for another one when I realized that I might print a handful of things a year, so I used a printing service. Pretty painless experience and very wide range of options for quality and size if I ever needed that would be totally out of reach of even a very expensive home printer setup.<p>Per-page for basic black text is a lot more than you could do with a laser printer but even a very cheap printer costs more than the combined cost of what I'm likely to ever print again. If my prediction is wrong and I find myself printing vast amounts of things I can buy a printer and eat loss of a few bucks. Feels good to have one less "thing" too.
I have an HP colour laser printer MFP just small home one. HP changed something a few years ago forcing people to log in to use their printer. I can't recall what happened but I was able to find a workaround or HP changed or cancelled that demand.<p>I think the problem as stated in comments is money obviously. But it's the loss of the home market. The "desktop publishing" craze is gone and now it's older people who have printers. That's a big loss of revenue. Printers at home seem to be alien to anyone under the age of 40.
I used to work in the ink cartridge industry. This is not new. HP has been actively blocking non-HP cartridges for at least 10y.<p>The issue is that there is a cat and mouse game between an handful HP "alternative cartridges" manufacturers and HP. HP is actively trying to detect and block non-HP cartridges while the manufacturers find a way to bypass it.<p>What probably has happened here is that HP had pushed a SW upgrade that detects non-HP cartridges a bit better. The manufacturers probably already found a way to bypass it and new cartridges will work on this firmware.
I keep getting told the #1 reason that Fuji Xerox printers die is the non genuine toners.<p>If that’s the case, is it evil to restrict cartridges to protect the image of your brand? If I was manufacturing enterprise printers, I would probably say no.<p>With manufacturers taking the absolute cheapest and minimum effort possible to manufacture things, and yet being nearly indistinguishable from the real deal online (think: all the dodgy portable hard drives on Amazon that are either just interfaces to SD cards or just fake), can you blame them?
Has anyone used Kyocera or Lexmark laser printers? I was considering buying a laser printer and HP was on the bottom of my list to consider. Thanks to their action I can exclude that option.
This behavior is just plain bad. While I have used HP Laser printers for decades now (current is about 8-9yo color) and tended to stick with HP high capacity toner, I don't like locking these things down any more than they already are. That said, I've only had to swap toner about once every 5 years or so with how little I actually print.<p>Brother is probably where I'll go for my next device.
Not only this, but our HP Pagewide inkjet machine will even refuse to use <i>genuine</i> ink if it’s “out of date”. I.e, its manufacture date was more than a couple of years ago. Also consider that the ink can sit on the shelf at the store or Managed Service Provider for this entire time and therefore go into landfill without ever being used in a machine.
This is terrible but next time I buy a printer it’ll probably just be the cheapest laser again since I barely get through a couple of reams of paper a decade.<p>I currently have a cheap Dell I bought for $80 years ago. I was able to put in a new off brand toner cartridge recently but the driver only barely works on a modern Mac and I expect it will stop working completely in a major version or two.
Fwiw I bought a used HP M405dne (workgroup class) for a pitance used. I stuck a GL iNet thing on the Ethernet port to get wifi on it. It has an option to enable firmware downgrades and happily takes third party toner. I pay something like 25$ every 3–4 years.<p>Maybe this is only happening to home office type printers and not to enterprise?
My current printer is being quite resilient, but once it dies, my relationship with HP does also (which goes back decades...I already replaced my last scanner similarly last year) as there is nothing left in HP worth supporting.
Would this be covered by proposed right-to-repair laws? Imagine if auto manufacturers said you can only use their parts and if you didn't your car would refuse to run?
I’m fed up with hp too and know nothing about printers m. I read a lot about brother and epson. Is that what you would recommend? I need to print 50 pages per year.<p>I feel really clueless
I have an old Laserjet M1217NFW that I just ordered a generic toner cartridge for. Hoping I’ll be ok, as I don’t think I’ve updated my drivers/software..