this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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HP wants you to pay up to $36/month to rent a printer that it monitors::"Never own a printer again."

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[–] [email protected] 170 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thanks! I'll never own an HP printer! Good advice!

[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 months ago (7 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

HP stands for hot paninis, because their laptops get so hot they can be used as a panini press.

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[–] [email protected] 136 points 9 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 80 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Calling it now.

HP Partners will be able to print ads to your printer using your paper, and ink at random hours of the day, all day, everyday.

"We've been trying to reach you regarding your car's extended warranty"

[–] [email protected] 42 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They're reinventing fax-spam.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

Remote Monitoring. Reads more like something a malware would do.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Holy shit, that’s like a step away from adding in refusal to print things that are potentially copyrighted or otherwise unacceptable

[–] [email protected] 67 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Or spend $15 more and get a Brother Laser printer.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (3 children)

They're getting worse too. Retroactively blocking third party toner cartridges.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

😂

You’re absolutely right but seeing this comment in any recent HP thread is just getting hilarious.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 months ago (3 children)

At this point, with ALL this negative press about Hp inkjet printers, who’s buying them? I certainly would never even consider one at this point. Well I’d never buy an inkjet but I digress.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Honestly. How do they still have customers?? Are the majority of consumers just accepting this?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Own an old HP.

Daaaamn this printer good!

Need new one. Get HP cuz gud, reliable and known.

Get betrayed

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 9 months ago

The toner in my laser printer has lasted longer than my need for hard copy.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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] 16 points 9 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (3 children)

$36/mo is 144 pages printed at my local library. If I needed to print that many pages, I'd get an enterprise MFP.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I had to print something yesterday... I submitted it to staples and went and picked it up.

Cost me $2

I expect that 10 pages will be all I'll have to print in 2024.

In the last 5 years I've spent less than $10 on printing.

If I had to actually print items.. I'd get a inexpensive brother laser printer

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 9 months ago (3 children)

HP can pay me monthly to suck my balls. First month is free

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I bet you it sends them the printer data so they can use it to train AI. It’s all in the ToC

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

The article literally says they sell your data to advertising partners. You're paying a monthly subscription to give away your personal data for something as basic as a fucking printer. If HP doesn't die my hope in humanity will be gone.

Imagine your thermostat sold your data so companies could solicit you with coats to buy, or your fridge sold the data of what food you have so shitty brands can beg you to buy their low quality trash because they spent half their budget on advertising.

I'm preaching to the choir but god I hate the ever growing data broker/aggressive targeted advertising trend.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago

I paid $100 for my Brother printer and I've spent...maybe $100 on toner cartridges since 2010.

So, yeah, HP can fuck off.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (7 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (12 children)

Get a black and white laser printer from brother... It's all you ever really "need"

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I bought an HP m281 mfp printer 3-4 years ago and disabled automatic firmware updates when I was setting it up. Not too long after that I read that a new firmware release prevented 3rd party cartridges from working.

Anyway I bought new ink cartridges a couple of years ago after getting pop-ups saying the ink was getting low. Thing is, I haven't had to install them yet because despite the warnings the printer has been printing just fine with the original cartridges.

So in addition to blocking 3rd party cartridges HP is also lying about how much ink their cartridges contain.

F.U. HP.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago

Never own a printer again.

I'll never own an HP printer again.

But not in the way they want...

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

HP was dead to me 15+ years ago.

Fuckin' shit-merchants.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm running a black & white wired Brother printer through a CUPS relay & I couldn't be happier without HP's bullshit

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Brother is an excellent no-bullshit company. It's was a sigh of relief when I switched from HP's bullshit to shove-a-power-cord-and-forget approach of Brother. Even their wake up and time to first page is significantly better than HP's. I still didn't use up my original toner but once I do, I'll buy original. Their almost atypical approach at this point deserves to be rewarded.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

HP becoming Facebook soon

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

One of my fondest memories was beating our old HP printer to death with the baseball bat we keep for potential intruders. I now print at the local library and regret the beating incident less and less every year.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

Really shitty management over at HP.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Are there any open source paper printers around? Like there are with 3D printers such as the Voron?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't know of any open source printers, but Brother laser printers are good. Brother is a 116-year-old Japanese industrial manufacturer. Their printers are simple, reliable, they support their printers for a very long time, and they make linux drivers. AND as far as I know they haven't tried any HP-style fuckery.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

They've been trying to make people sign up this for a while. Their drivers are pretty much malware that attempts to trick the user to sign up.

I doubt that it is a successful model for HP. They don't offer anything other than a stupid way to pay. Who the hell wants that.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

HP can die in a fiery flameout.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

People don't seem to realize this kind of thing will be really popular. If you have a small office or you don't do your own tech support, these deals sound awesome. Small fee and thing is always working when you need it. They don't think about how better laser is and how longer toner can last without being used, etc. They don't care, what they see is 36$ a month not to deal with any printer related issues. Kind of a brilliant move on HPs side. Make printers evil, then offer solution to evil via subscription. And you can bet your ass this one will magically have significantly better drivers and lower maintenance than others because those would bite into all that sweet income.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (4 children)

this is already a thing in the corporate world though and has been for over a decade, probably longer. what we don't want is this shit in our houses

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's an insane price. It would literally be cheaper to buy a new HP printer when the ink runs out.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months 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.

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