HP customers claim firmware update rendered third-party ink verboten | Then the company cranked up the price of cartridges, complaint alleges::Then the company cranked up the price of cartridges, complaint alleges
Buy Brother
Submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/09/hp_class_action_ink/
HP customers claim firmware update rendered third-party ink verboten | Then the company cranked up the price of cartridges, complaint alleges::Then the company cranked up the price of cartridges, complaint alleges
Buy Brother
If I had my druthers, all my printers would be Brothers.
Give me a nickel, Brother, Can you spare a di-heim?!
Beat me to it. DO NOT BUY HP PRODUCTS ANYMORE! Brother is a fantastic alternative and if I’m not mistaken sometimes cheaper, and if not cheaper, it’s at least far better quality.
Don’t buy hp products… Ok. What’s the best brother server or laptop?
😂
It’s fucking nuts how much better they are. I bought a monochrome Brother printer a few years ago. I’m still on the starter toner that came with it. I am never going back to ink. Gone are the days of not being able to print in black cause I’m low on cyan. Fuck HP.
Personally, I’ve been fine without having a printer at all for like the last decade. In the rare event that I need to print something, I’ll just go to Staples or something to get it done there. I’d be surprised if I’ve spent more than $20 total on printing.
Though with my daughter getting older, it might be only a matter of time before it becomes more cost effective and convenient to have my own. Which will not be an HP even if they paid me to take one.
HP would literally shoot your pet if it was profitable.
ATF enters the chat slyly.
Only to find that PETA has already stolen the dog and euthanized it, “To end its suffering.”
I work on copiers for a living. Seriously, fuck HP.
I swear they’re designed not to be worked on. Just speaking of the fuser on any Laserjet photocopier, they heat up and cool down constantly. Obviously stuff is going to break and it needs to be repaired.
HP says fuck you! On the little desktop printers, on some models, you have to take all plastic panels off, and they all connect to each other so good luck getting it put back together right. They’re built exactly like a rubix cube. I literally clip off plastic tabs and just leave it. The customer never knows.
I’ve been through official HP training. They told me “we can’t teach you on a specific model because we average a new model every month, so we’ll just give you a ball park on what to look for”
I stopped calling HP support because they don’t even know their own machines. Shout-out to Laser Pros, they’re the best.
Why does anyone still buy HP?
Ignorance
The big one seems to be non-techies who long ago heard they were good. A long, LONG time ago.
They were awesome way back in the before time.
We ran HP Laserjets (era of the 3,4 and 5) at one of my first IT jobs. We had a ton of them and they were bulletproof. Just change the cartridges and clean the rollers every now and then. Boom, printing.
It takes 20-seconds to research their products before purchasing. Those few seconds would reveal that HP is now a shit product. Another 20-seconds would reveal Brother to be highly regarded.
“Capitalism fucked me over and I wish to sue HP’s ass off!”
I have no idea what to tell people.
“Companies make worse and worse products and I keep buying them! Make it stop Mr. Government!”
IT professional here, cheap initial purchase means that when I go to my boss with the required ‘3 options’, DESPITE me detailing why HP is super terrible and expensive long-term, they will ALWAYS insist on the HP.
Add onto that brand recognition and it’s basically impossible to convince any site I work on to switch to Brother unless they directly experience just how unreliable and expensive HP actually is. Even then it’s still a 50/50 if they’ll make the rational choice.
They are often bundled with computers in cheap packages 
They sell the printers below cost.
We need a properly-open sourced printer at this point.
I have a laser etcher. Through trial and error, I got it to produce black and white images on wood. So it’s now a laser photo printer. Just change one axis to move the material instead of the head and you have an open laser printer.
EFF should buy out Brother?
I was thinking more along the lines of Megasquirt, but for a printer.
I just found out about the last time HP did this. I didn’t realize they were about to try it all over again. I guess they realized that any plan that looks good once is worth attempting again, by slowly wearing down the opposition. Like Google did with breaking ad blockers.
You know, we do have a word in English that means “verboten” right?
It’s the same root too, how cool is that!
Happened to me! Even with me taking efforts ahead of time to prevent the new firmware download, it somehow snuck through. I finally got so fed up with their BS because of this, I got rid of the hp and bought a Brother. Brother workin flawlessly, and I can rest easy knowing it will just print shit when I need it to and not try to extort cash from me to do so.
Verboten?
German lone word from old high German. It just means Forbidden.
Also just plain and simply “forbidden” in regular modern German.
Past participle of “bieten”, “to bid”, as in “to command”. English correspondence to that is “bidden”. The prefix is “ver-” which here denotes completative aspect as well as negativity, the English correspondence to that is “for-” (not strict, but at least in this case). Sticking both together you get “forbidden” which indeed is the right translation. “The action of bidding a negative has been completed”, or, simply, “You’ve been told not to”.
Thank you
I hope I’ll remember never to buy anything new from HP as that’s disgusting 🤮
This is the best summary I could come up with:
HP is facing a potential class action complaint regarding a firmware update that rendered its printers unable to use ink from any other supplier.
The complaint [PDF] centers around a firmware update issued between late 2022 and early 2023 that is alleged to have disabled a customer’s printer if a replacement cartridge that was not HP-branded was installed.
It adds: “In effect, HP used the software update to create a monopoly in the aftermarket for replacement cartridges, permitting it to raise prices without fear of being undercut by competitors.”
The complaint claims “the costs of ink for the All-in-One is not trivial or fleeting,” and draws a comparison between the $100 needed for a typical set of HP-branded replacement cartridges versus those of a competitor, which it says can be half the price.
HP’s end user license agreement states that using a third-party cartridge won’t invalidate a warranty.
Ir is seeking class certification, compensation from the printer giant, and an injunction to disable the part of the firmware updates that prevent the use of third-party ink.
The original article contains 547 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Are there government consumer projection people working but no one has ever submitted a report so they just don’t know?
Y’all gonna make me look up the German dictionary so I know what verboten means, gawd damn I don’t need no education
(To be fair it’s interesting that they’d throw a random German word into an English language headline meant for English language readers, especially as it’s the key explanatory word in the headline, and yet it’s one we wouldn’t commonly know. Unlike commonly used non-English words like Information, or Cul-de-sac, Zeitgeist, Kaput, or Baguette, we - to my knowledge - haven’t used the word verboten before over here).
So yeah, I had to Google translate it xD But now I know! Woo!
Somebody tell me again why we, as a society, still print things? Other than publishing, why do we need printers?
cmon now. no victim blaming.
what if i just want to print a coloring book for my kid? there are perfectly valid reason to want to print things, and it should not be as difficult/stupid as it is today.
Oh, I fully blame HP for this, but I am also just asking the question. Now that you mentioned colouring pages, I remember that I used a printer pretty heavily while my kids were home during quarantine.
For the odd time I have to print something, it’s more worth my while to just go to Staples or whatever and get it printed for me there.
The only other thing I cam remember printing in the near term has been amazon return labels.
My ailing grandfather has no phome nor computer, I send him letters every month with full colour pictures of myself and family.
That said I use my local print shop because I’d rather pay $0.50 per page than have my $25 inkjet printer cartridge deplete after 10 pages.
Ever tried refilling them yourself? It’s fun
Some of my clients want a physical invoice. My CPA wants hard copy for notation. I want physical copies of certain documents for ease of use. The DMV won’t take electronic copies of proof of residency. CVS insists on providing a mile long receipt.
There are a million more. Most of it breaks down to people’s preferences and bureaucracy. It’ll be a long time before hard copy goes away.
The company I work for went “paperless” and now uses even more paper than before ¯_(ツ)_/¯
For them, it was about revision control. Everything needs be stored and traced electronically but that means reprinting documents every time an order comes up again.
My MIL doesn’t like to read things on the screen, she much prefers paper. So she prints lots of webpages. sigh
I ship a lotta servers, still need connotes
Another reason to boycott HP
My favourite printer brand.
HP isn’t what it used to be. I’ve got an HP color laser printer that has been cranking for more than ten years, while using third party toner. It’s sad seeing them like this now.
HP is a cancerous company that should be killed with fire.
The executives and management should be tracked and blacklisted.
Not related: but is „verboten“ (forbidden) really used in English? Just wondering because it is German.
FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 10 months ago
That’s like, HP’s whole business model lol
EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Hey! Don’t forget selling pieces of shit that are designed to last a few years tops.
samokosik@lemmynsfw.com 10 months ago
Unfortunately it’s not only HP.