Why yes, I'd love to rent your printer and be spied on!

[thestrangebrew1]

Not sure if this has been talked about or not yet, but HP has decided to start a printer renting service/subscription model and lock you in for 2 years or get charged up the wazoo.

HP wants you to pay up to $36/month to rent a printer that it monitors

"Never own a printer again."

arstechnica.com

This is complete bullshit and overly hostile to consumers. Thank goodness I've boycotted HP products recently.

 

[mikeymikec]

Tip of the iceberg for HP.

"HP Dynamic Security" stops your printer + scanner working until you remove the non-HP cartridges, combined with coercion to use automatic firmware updates.

"HP Instant Ink" can also disable all your printer's printing capabilities if HP feels there's an issue with your account.

 

[sdifox]

It's not like they are holding a gun to your head to make you sibscribe is it?

 

[Charmonium]

Rent our printers or the kitten gets it!

Gets what?

A nice belly rub 😋

 

[nakedfrog]

I bought my color laser printer for $90 11 years ago... $36/mo seems like an utterly fucking terrible deal.

 

[biostud]

Yeah, but no.
I'll stick to Brother.

 

[brianmanahan]

i still wish my hp deskjet 1600c was still working

and also i wish i still had an lpt port

 

[MrSquished]

I read about them wanting to do a subscription service for printing a couple years ago. I was like these people are nuts. And yet here we are. Fuck them. I'll fucking write all my stuff in calligraphy first rather than subscribe to a printer service.

 

[brianmanahan]

the subscription model is a business dream come true

once software-as-a-service started making crazy money by providing almost nothing new, it was only a matter every other industry tried to get in on the same model

it's why i keep running my old adobe software instead of upgrading. there's no way i'd pay for something when i already own it.

 

[Exterous]

Yeah, but no.
I'll stick to Brother.

Lord help us all if Brother gives into the darkside

 

[Red Squirrel]

I hate how this subscription and cloud connected trend is taking over everything now. At some point there will be no other options if they all jump the bandwagon. Just look at the direction cars are going, it's shitty. I just want to pay for a product and fully own it, and have it work stand alone without relying on some server I don't have control over.

I have a Brother laserjet that's around 15 years old and it still works fine. Maybe I need to buy a colour one before they all go subscription based. I always kinda wanted a colour laserjet but also can't quite justify it for the little printing I do.

 

[Charmonium]

Quality and therfore brand loyalty aren't dead but very much endangered. You'd have to pay me to buy any Sony products - I won't even read the reviews. And yes, I'm bitter but better bitter than a biter,rt?

Anyway, we have to assume they did their market research so they at least believe that this will be attractive to enough peeps to make it worthwhile

 

[lxskllr]

Sony's overrated, and they've been overrated a very long time. Re renting a printer... You aren't even renting. You get the worst of both worlds. With a true rental, hp's on the hook to keep the printer functioning properly. This scheme, you pay like you're renting, but you have to fix any problems yourself. A service agreement can work for the right person(usually businesses). You rent the printer, ink gets sent on a schedule, and if the printer fucks up, a tech comes out and fixes it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Part of the issue is most people are financially dumb and can't think long term. They are not willing to spend 1k once, to get a high quality product but rather pay $41 monthly (once you factor taxes), for a cheap product, and they think they're saving.

So sadly, this trend will continue as there will be enough people that buy into it. But even if not enough people buy into it, once all the manufacturers get on board it's going to be forced anyway. Kinda like smart TVs. If you want a non smart TV, good luck. Pickings are very slim. I think fridges are going to be the next item to get affected by this trend.

Maybe eventually there will be a hacker community that specializes in reverse engineering this stuff and writing custom firmware that you load on the microcontroller. Or even sell the chips pre programmed and you can just desolder the factory one and put in the custom one.

 

[Charmonium]

A service agreement can work for the right person(usually businesses). You rent the printer, ink gets sent on a schedule, and if the printer fucks up, a tech comes out and fixes it.

Excellent point but more for a somewhat obscure reason - rented equipment can be expensed rather than depreciated. Expenses come rt off of the top line. That's also true for purchased equipment too in some cases, but not generally and if nothing else, it simplifies your tax accounting.

 

[manly]

Thanks, Carly Fiorina!

i still wish my hp deskjet 1600c was still working

and also i wish i still had an lpt port

Why?

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-1-Port-Parallel-PCIe-Card/dp/B091TZPQ1K/

 

[igor_kavinski]

Maybe people will just get together on a forum somewhere and 3D print their own printers?

 

[MinervaLaw]

I've never owned an HP. I've owned an Epson and they are junk and will never buy again. Now I stick to my Brother laser printer/scanner/feeder and my Canon Prograph pro-1000 for photos (small and large scale). Best combination I've had and will keep them for as long as possible. Love my Brother laser though.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Brother makes good printers, hope they never go to the dark side.

Now this has me looking at colour laser printers... I don't need one but always kind of wanted one. They are surprisingly affordable now.

 

[Lanyap]

That's the last straw! I'm going back to dot matrix!

 

[olds]

I bought my color laser printer for $90 11 years ago... $36/mo seems like an utterly fucking terrible deal.

Ya, I doubt I print monthly.

 

[pcgeek11]

I love my Epson Tank Printer. I don't print a lot and I'm still on the factory supplied ink bottles. I've had it for 3 years now, I just make sure I print a color page every week or so to prevent the jets from gumming up.

 

[Amol S.]

Not sure if this has been talked about or not yet, but HP has decided to start a printer renting service/subscription model and lock you in for 2 years or get charged up the wazoo.

HP wants you to pay up to $36/month to rent a printer that it monitors

"Never own a printer again."

arstechnica.com

This is complete bullshit and overly hostile to consumers. Thank goodness I've boycotted HP products recently.

I have used HP printer for like almost the past 10 to 11 years.

 

[right_to_know]

Sooooo are there any plans for an open source hardware printer yet or even a plotter?

 

[MrSquished]

Part of the issue is most people are financially dumb and can't think long term. They are not willing to spend 1k once, to get a high quality product but rather pay $41 monthly (once you factor taxes), for a cheap product, and they think they're saving.

Actually that's not how this all happened, people didn't ask for subscription services, these things called corporations forced them on us, so you victim blame - but let's not get into that as it won't go well, but anyway...

Now this has me looking at colour laser printers... I don't need one but always kind of wanted one. They are surprisingly affordable now.

Smart. Fuck the long-term house maintenance you are always complaining about like it's something crazy for you to even have to deal with. I'm with you, get the printer toy.