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Tell HN: HP printers force you into agreement
682 points by bryanlarsen on Dec 10, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 302 comments
The HP Smart App forces you to agree to use only their ink before you can use their app. That shouldn't be a big deal since modern HP printers work fine out of the box without a driver.

However, after you've printed a bunch of pages, they stop working and display the error message "Printer setup incomplete. Your HP+ printer must be set up using the HP Smart app. Visit 123.hp.com to download the app and complete the guided setup. Any pages you have printed were intended for setup and have been exhausted."

Conveniently, this usually doesn't happen until it's too late to return the printer.




Years ago, I ran out of ink in a HP All-in-One printer at my business at an inopportune time. To make sure it didn’t happen again, I bought a bunch of extras on Amazon. The extras arrived, everything looked normal, and I set them aside for a rainy day.

Some time later when I finally used the ink I bought, imagine my surprise when the printer wouldn’t accept the ink because it was from the “wrong region”. HP printer ink is region locked!

I called HP support and they fed me an unbelievable story that this was for my own good. You see, ink in different regions is turned for the climate in that region, the support rep explained! I was dumbfounded at such a stupid explanation.

With no other option and wanting to prevent others from making a similar mistake, I tweeted about my experience. Magically, HP support promptly contacted me and sent me replacements. So now I’ve learned that not only is HP unscrupulous and manipulative, you are wasting your time bothering with normal support channels. You’ll only get results if you embarrass them publicly.

I’ve purchased my last HP printer, but I fear each of their competitors is just as bad.


> I fear each of their competitors is just as bad.

I can't speak to current practices, as my current Brother printer is now 7 years old and is still on its second toner cartridge. It's a B&W laser with wifi, a duplexer, and whatever discovery stuff that iDevices need to find and print to it driverless.

It replaced a very similar Brother printer that had gotten a solid 10 years of service, and which I chose to replace rather than repair when the fuser died mostly because I wanted the iDevice affordances.

Both of those printers also worked smoothly from Linux desktops, too, thanks to pretty good PostScript emulation.

Maybe they've gone to crap now, but I'm optimistic that if I needed another B&W laser, something like their current HL-2350DW or HL-2370DW would provide a similarly inexpensive, no-bullshit experience now.

The thing that worked for me was giving up on color printing. The supplies for that are eye-wateringly expensive IMO, and I seldom really need it. Last time I had a color printer at home, it was an Epson ink jet of some description, and my color prints were so infrequent that sometimes the cartridge would dry out after a few dozen pages. And worst of all, it'd refuse to do B&W prints if one of the colors was dry. I decided I'd just go to Kinko's if I needed a color document, or to one of several drug stores that lets you print photos if I needed photos. Black and White lasers are stable. Taking apart my Brother, it is extremely similar to the Canon engines from the 1980s. Which were themselves extremely similar to photocopiers that have been in production since quite a bit earlier than that.

B&W laser printing is such a well-solved problem, if you can stand to go with that you can save yourself a ton of aggravation and quite a bit of money.


Brother is one of the VERY few companies I'd choose without thinking twice. At least in terms of printers. So far, only had good experiences.

And now I realize that sounds like astroturfing.


Unfortunately, Brother also seems to have switched to pulling this kind of crap recently too. :(

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131


Well... time to flip some tables.


There's still Ricoh. I literally found a big one in the streets that worked perfectly (I suppose the small company that was at this address needed something bigger).

Generic cartridges are just find and you refill them easily.


I have a Kyocera color laser, no nonsense, it’s a great printer and works fine out of the box with both Linux and iDevices.


Is the color toner super-expensive?


I used 3rd party toner and it's cheap / fine.


Agreed. Brother (laser) printers are extremely reliable in my experience too. I’ve been using them for close to 20 years now.

HP probably would have been my only other choice if/when I have to replace my superb (and crazy cheap) Brother B&W laser but after reading this post I will never go near HP printers again.

Edit: just read about Brother’s nasty firmware update elsewhere in the comments here. Sigh. I guess I’ll just have to stop buying printers altogether.


Fascinating. I wouldn't at any time choose Brother. A friend of mine got a new Mac with a new OS. Printer was around 4-5 years old.

There was no support on the new OS at all. With a lot of luck one could print b&w, but color never worked again.

I never experienced that using HP or Xerox.


> There was no support on the new OS at all. With a lot of luck one could print b&w, but color never worked again. I never experienced that using HP or Xerox.

the cost of the old Brother and then a new Brother at that point would have been cheaper than the cost of either the HP or the Xerox

and if you were using linux (and almost as often Windows too), the old drivers would have still worked.


Was your friend using os9 or something? Until it finally bit the dust last week I had a 10 year old Brother printer (MFC 7440 or something like that) that worked fine on both Windows and Mac versions up through High Sierra


Can't remember it exactly. Is already a year ago. It was some kind of color laser and the latest OS X at that time. The support forums were full of posts describing the same issue and the (only) unofficial solution was to fiddle with ither drivers or a generic PS and sonehow be lucky to make color printing work again. I gave up after an hour or two.

IMHO, those are mostly personal experiences that lead to preferred manufacturers. For each story where one tells you he never had any issue you'll find one that for sure had issues.


We recently bought a brother aio to replace my mom's previous HP Deskjet aio, zero issues with it from phones, laptops, desktops, etc. I'd still recommend them in a heartbeat.


I’ve had good luck with the Epson LABELWORKS LW-PX400 label printer and they’re projectors, but yeah for printing now we just pay the $0.05c/page at ups or FedEx or wherever.


I own a secondhand Brother inkjet printer. I bought it on eBay under the influence of posts like these. TLDR, they now DRM their cartridges. Each ink cartridge has a chip in it. One of the first experiences I had was my printer refusing a back ink cartridge. I had to throw away a full cartridge.


Brother is still good. The main issue is the usual one: It stops printing when toner is a bit low even though you could probably still print another 50-100 pages. But you'll find workarounds on the Internet.


I've owned two Brother laser printers in the past 15 years. I've run into this issue with the newer one: it will just refuse to print at a certain point. However, I was able to find a work-around (probably the same one you found) by typing some magic code I got from a YouTube video into the front panel and then it worked for awhile until I did replace the toner cartridge.

Was quite frustrating but nowhere near as bad of some of the HP stories like this that I read on HN.


Magic code? This is from the Brother support site:

To enable Continue Mode, perform the following steps:

1. Press Menu.

2. Press ▲ or ▼ to select General Setup. Press OK.

3. Press ▲ or ▼ to select Replace Toner. Press OK.

4. Press ▲ or ▼ to select Continue. Press OK.

5. Press Stop/Exit.


It probably varies from printer to printer. I definitely needed to enter a magic code.


I used two Brother laser printers heavily, a color one and a monochrome one. I went through multiple cartridges over several years, Brother's and third-party. Zero issues. Windows, Mac, and Linux drivers available.

When a printer signaled that the toner should have run out, I checked the cartridge. It apparently had enough toner left, so I entered a special code and reset the counter for the cartridge.

I can only recommend their laser lineup.


I used a piece of tape to achieve the same thing. Printed for a few years (yes, a rare need) after that small operation.

It's sad that manufacturers resort to these schenaningans at all.


I have a generation older Brother HL-2270DW and it also has never given me issues. The only thing missing is proper support for iOS cloud printing but that has been an issue in my household zero times. The included toner cartridge is smaller than even the standard side replacements Brother sells, I am not really sure of the reason.

There might have been an update to add iOS printing to it via some software bridge, but I never checked. There are multiple tutorials online about setting up a Raspberry Pi (even a zero w) as an AirPrint server and interfacing with the printer via CUPS. This allows using a lot older printer models as well that don't have built-in wifi.

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/raspberry-pi-print-serve...


I bought a Brother printer about a year back and the toner stopped working because Brother decided it was "empty" instead of allowing me to continue until it fades and I decide it's "empty". (In this case, the print quality was perfect until it was declared empty.)

So it seems Brother is not immune from giving into the temptation of turning into a terrible printer company. Hopefully they don't continue down that path.

(I can't remember which model I have and am away on travel, but I can update assuming anyone cares...)


I have a Brother HL3075CW color laser and scanner combo that's just under 10 years old. I've replaced the toner only once. I may not print much, but color is nice to have and not that expensive unless you print a lot.

Tangentially, can we talk about old printers being too scary to connect to the network? No firmware upgrades ever. I've been thinking of setting up a RPi or something as a bastion host and print&scan server, preventing direct traffic.


I do this to give a HL-2270DW air print capabilities. Tiny VM on my home server, works great.


Same here. I went through two Brother laser printers (wireless, scanner), the previous one having had an unfortunate mechanical accident (ach, children...).

It works great. The only negative comment is that it starts to cry for a new cartridge some 6 months early, but I just go on printing and there are no problems (they even have a setting with what to do when "ink is low": stop and cry or go on)


Well, that's a laser printer, which is very different from an inkjet. I haven't owned a printer in a long time, because I don't need to print often enough for it to be worth the hassle and cost, but the last time I looked into it (which was also years ago), brother inkjets were maybe a little better than other brands, but not by a lot, and that is a low bar.

The problem with laser printers is that they have a much higher upfront cost, especially if you actually need color. Sure, they are probably worth it in the long run, but that bigger price tag stops a lot of people from getting one.


I have an older Brother HL-3070. Main issue is that when printing files of certain complexity, they print fine if I do it under Windows but it takes sometimes 5 minutes to render each sheet if doing it under Linux. Not sure if it is due to the printer's age, or what. The replacement printer is a new er HP M283 which hasn't had this issue. (I finally had to replace the Brother due to color streaking, even with replacing the drums and new toner cartridges, plus the toner was getting hard to find).


This is the way. However, it’s a bit sad that all these decades later, quality color printing at home is still such a mess because of a few profiteering companies.


That's pretty much what I did, save that I never had to replace my printer and I'm on the 2nd thing of toner since many, many years ago. For someone who doesn't print a whole lot, but occasionally needs to print a bit, it has been awesome.

I got burnt out after dealing with an old Epson inkjet back in the day. Never want to go back to that.


My laser printer is a OKI I think. It's similar. One toner cartridge, can't remember what year I bought it.


Whilst I also recommend Brother if people ask, and also go to a local bureau for colo(u)r, the mono laser printers I've had at home for the last 20 years have been HP, simply because those are the ones needing very minor repair that I've picked up for free!


I have a Brother color inkjet, since 2015. The first few years were great but now its been a royal hastle to get it to print more than a page or two at a time. I've been considering switching to B&W laser. Thanks for the model recommendations.


Can also vouch for Brother. I have their J5330DW color inkjet. Everything works very solidly and I can replace all 4 cartridges (CMYK) separately. Depending on how much I print, that’s about €90 in ink per year.


The problem I have with laser printers is they draw a lot more power than an inkjet. I can run an inkjet printer off my pedal-powered generator. I can't do that with a laser printer.


Can confirm, I have an HL-2390DW using CUPS shared to a numerous Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android devices with absolutely no issues, it takes 3rd party toner cartridges and works without issue.


I have 10-year-old Brother MFC-9970CDW, purchased June 12, 2012. Replaced a couple of toner cartridges over the years, and that's it. Still going strong.


> HL-2350DW

They do. I have this model and aftermarket toners work effortlessly. I'll never buy HP or Lexmark. They're the worst.


They haven't gone to crap. I bought their basic laser b&w printer and it works without any of this nonsense.


Are you me?


>I’ve purchased my last HP printer, but I fear each of their competitors is just as bad.

you're probably right, but I purchased an Epson 'EcoTank' printer, black-and-white printing only & with a refillable ink hopper and couldn't be happier for simple document printing.

The only gotcha i'm aware of is that they use this 'primer box' thing to squirt excess ink into during nozzle procedures that apparently will eventually fill up and require replacement, but I haven't heard of any need to do so after 3+ years of printing, so i'll count that as a win as compared to cartridge replacement which seemed to be a constant burden with our previous HP units.


I went with Epson as well after having a xerox laser printer for about a decade. The xerox allowed me to do aftermarket toner and it work decently well, but it's still had issues. Sadly a good laser printer, the toner is just far too expensive.

When I was researching the Epson printers, I learned about pigment ink and how it doesn't smear with water like traditional inkjet printers did. It's worked really well for the last few years I've had it.


Sadly Epson is getting out of laser printer business [0], which to me signals they’ll be fully focusing on screwing users going forward.

[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/epson-completes-business-mfp-...


>You see, ink in different regions is turned for the climate in that region, the support rep explained! I was dumbfounded at such a stupid explanation.

If I had my fuck you money I'd get a lab to put that to the test and then instruct my high priced lawyer to serve papers. There must be consequences for telling blatant fibs like that.


I don't think you need a lab. I'm pretty doubtful the region it is locked to would be smaller than the united states. And the US has several very different clomates. Just order ink from a few states with different climates, say florida, maine, arizona, etc. If they all work on a printer bought in the US, clearly climate isn't the reason. Or even just point out that by that logic, in many areas you should then need to use different ink in different seasons.


I wonder if they also have special cartridges for the southern hemisphere where documents print bottom to top.


Exactly maybe is not climate, but Coriolis effect on the toner.


Don't be silly - the coriolis effect is way to small. It has been proven with the sink water turning clockwise experiments.

This is clearly a quantum mechanics effect, of the less known ones. The same one that makes all alien land in the US (or at least this is what I saw in various documentaries)


If so then every call center in America is ripe for lawsuit because they're just making shit up to placate you half the time.


> I called HP support and they fed me an unbelievable story that this was for my own good. You see, ink in different regions is turned for the climate in that region, the support rep explained! I was dumbfounded at such a stupid explanation.

I don't doubt their explanation for a moment.

We all know the weather in Alaska and Florida is very similar, while the weather in London is completely different.


Well, they're not going to tell you there's something in the US ink that's banned in the EU, or vice versa — this is purely an example of another type of explanation, of course.


> You’ll only get results if you embarrass them publicly.

This is sadly official common practice. I’ve had experience with a major cloud provider, who wouldn’t budge until you mentioned “social media”.

Which sucks on many levels - the more polite customer gets screwed over, and the impolite (and perhaps outright rude) gets reinforced to be more impolite sooner next time.

Hobbes said that “man is a wolf to man”, and modern economy does its best to prove him right.


I bought a Canon Maxify GX7020 a year ago and I've been quite happy with it. Ticks all the boxes of having printer, scanner, fax, and full duplex on both scanning and printing.

Most importantly it uses ink tanks. They don't last as long as laser toner, but if you want an ink jet, it's great because there is no cartridge. You just fill it up with ink. I also stopped buying HP after I noticed all the scams they pull with their ink cartridges.

As others have mentioned, a simple Brother printer is also a great option.


> I called HP support and they fed me an unbelievable story that this was for my own good. You see, ink in different regions is turned for the climate in that region, the support rep explained! I was dumbfounded at such a stupid explanation. [...] you are wasting your time bothering with normal support channels.

I worked in a call center for 8 months and I'll tell you this is pretty much all of them. You call up and talk to a front-line agent who wasn't really clued in on the reasoning for anything and isn't empowered to do much that falls outside standard workflows. You might as well ask your friends why HP does something because he'll come up with an answer from as much information as the agent has. You might be able to escalate to somebody who actually has the power to make any kind of exception if you insist on it but that's definitely not the first layer.


The climate explanation is not entirely without basis, judging by the relative popularity of inkjets compared to lasers in (moist) Southeast Asia; but if that was the real reason rather than price differentiation, they should've been far more transparent with it.

I know some cartridges also have expiry dates, which is at least somewhat more reasonable as ink does dry, but instead of being simply a label you read, they're encoded on the cartridge chip and the printer refuses to use them if they've expired.


> You’ll only get results if you embarrass them publicly.

Tips on how to do this most effectively?


Post on Usenet.


I stand by what I wrote 9 months ago. [1] And it was probably the same 9 years before when I last had to deal with it.

>I had to install a new inkjet printer because kids now need to print out their homework during COVID.

>I swear to god if I ever become wealthy the printer industry is what I intended to completely destroy. Not in it for profit. Not positive sum whatever startup thinking. It will be Zero Sum.

>Edit: Lasers are fine. That will be left alone.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30553662


    I tweeted about my experience.
    Magically, HP support promptly contacted me and sent me replacements.
    You’ll only get results if you embarrass them publicly.
This is the only actually useful reason why I keep a twitter account.

Literally, the only actual value in twitter, as an user, is that if you embarrass a company publicly you'll get actual support.

For everything twitter is pretty much worthless.


I had a similar experience where I discovered that the HP printer I’d bought from a major UK retailer had come with the wrong region ink and was now permanently locked to US cartridges.

I’ll never give HP money for anything ever again.


Another surprise is that if you want to use the printer over USB you have to purchase that cable *separately*. If you purchase online is very easy to fall for this one as people won't check for this, this happened to me around ~2 years ago with one of these low end pieces of crap.


Honestly, I prefer this, it seems to save millions of excess cables being sent to landfill ... a good company would allow you to order one free with the printer, or have a coupon in the box to get one for postage.


It's done to offer the office supply shops a bonus by giving them the extra sale of their ridiculously overpriced USB cables.

They make more profit on those than on the printer itself as they're just cheap Chinese $1 cables.

Another scam in this totally broken market.


Is it a custom cable? Every one I've ever seen (in the USB era) is a standard Type B cable. https://www.newnex.com/usb-connector-type-guide.php


I never understood the reason for separate Type B connectors when the standard A, micro or now C-type connectors would work just as well and allow people to use the millions of cables of those they already have.


Pre-USB-C: USB A is host, USB B is device - be it normal-size-B or micro-size-B. Those should be the most common cables. (I'm not sure I'd have any standard-A-to-A?)


For Australian's: the ACCC has been onto this, though is this a new attempt by HP?

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/hp-to-compensate-print...

"Customers of HP PPS Australia Pty Ltd (HP) who bought certain models of HP printers without being informed non-HP ink cartridges may not work in them could be eligible for compensation, the ACCC announced today."

"HP has given the ACCC a court-enforceable undertaking to compensate customers who were unable to use non-HP ink cartridges due to an undisclosed technology in their printers."

...

"HP has undertaken to compensate consumers $50 who were prevented from using a non-HP cartridge."

"HP has since made available an automatic firmware update for download which removes the DSF from certain inkjet printer models and allows customers to use non-HP cartridges."

"The undertaking is available at HP PPS Australia Pty Ltd ."

https://www.accc.gov.au/public-registers/undertakings-regist...

"Details of how to claim compensation are on the HP website."

"Consumers can also contact HP via 1800 625 236 for more information."


Europeans in Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal are also due compensation. Get your claims in by 6th of March 2023.

https://www.euroconsumers.org/activities/hp-and-euroconsumer...

https://assets.ctfassets.net/iapmw8ie3ije/KB59keIaRiPTdYg71E...


300% of the printer price (treble damages) would be adequate compensation, methinks.


> HP has since made available an automatic firmware update for download which removes the DSF from certain inkjet printer models and allows customers to use non-HP cartridges.

Would it be possible to get hands on this firmware update and install it outside of Australia too?


It sees like HP has capitulated and the updated firmware is already on wider release?

https://support.hp.com/hr-en/product/hp-officejet-pro-6830-e...


Absolutely scummy, and yet another example of something labeled "smart" that's hostile to the user.

There needs to be open source firmware for 2D printers too, like there have already been plenty developed for 3D ones. No need to reinvent the whole thing, but just replace the electronics. Presumably the printhead/cartridge interface is still much the same and they haven't gone to the effort of obfuscating/encrypting that yet... https://spritesmods.com/?art=magicbrush

It's unfortunate that printers turned from being based on standard protocols that were documented in the manual they came with (ASCII, ESC/P2, PCL, PostScript, etc.) to these proprietary closed systems. None of the printer manufacturers, including HP, used to be like this.


Printers always had proprietary software. Not only that, but the reason why the Free Software movement was started was caused by a printer that Richard Stallman had in its MIT office and that the manufacturer refused to release the source code for its software!

> standard protocols

You still find printers that support standard protocols, such as IPP (internet printing protocol), that work fine without proprietary drivers with CUPS on Linux. You just have to spend a little more money and avoid consumer stuff, that is Inkjet printers, and go for network laser printers meant to be used in small offices. B/W ones aren't too much expensive, and you can find ones used for not a lot of money, or even free, since companies throw them out, that still work.


One oddity is that, through Linux basically piggybacking on the support printer manufacturers built in to get out-of-the-box printing on Macs and iDevices, the world of Linux printing support is actually really good for newish printers without needing drivers. There are a lot of AirPrint and IPP Everywhere printers out there.

I've had good luck in the past, as many have, with Brother's simple laser printers, but was very surprised at the ease of setup on Linux of a new Brother multi-function all-in-one inkjet printer/scanner combo thing: even the scanner worked over the network without a fuss. Night and day compared to my recollections of working with hpijs, hplip, foomatic, even poking around for Brother laser drivers sometimes for ones that didn't talk PCL.

But then you have things like this where there's a pointless app forced into the mix to add more friction to that improved story... just because.


> You still find printers that support standard protocols, such as IPP (internet printing protocol),

It is rare to find a printer these days which doesn't support IPP, even el cheapo inkjet ones. It is required to print from iOS.


Funny that the entire free software ecosystem started because RMS couldn't hack a printer back in the day. It's almost 2023, we still can't hack these things and it keeps getting worse every year. Every single printer thread here on HN I learn about some new DRM nightmare they came up with because fuck consumers. This time it's region locked ink cartridges!


> because fuck consumers

No, because printers are likely sold below cost, with the profit intended to be recouped through ink sales.

If we want open, well-supported printers, we're going to pay a lot more for the hardware.


Okay. Give me the option to pay.


Not a big enough market for that in the consumer space, so you’ll find what you’re after in a big beige box with a network port made for “SOHO” or mid-size enterprises.


Exactly. At the risk of beating a dead horse, the HN imagined "technologically-literate, price-insensitive market" doesn't exist at a revenue-relevant scale for most consumer goods.


In this case, there does exist a comparable product for the technically-literate, price insensitive market. It’s sold side-by-side with the “subscription supported” product, by the same manufacturer.

Case in point:

Subscription supported. Requires internet, app + account, first party toner. Costs $120 at time of writing, with a bonus 6 month supply of toner free. https://smile.amazon.com/HP-LaserJet-M234dwe-Wireless-6GW99E...

Equivalent hardware. No internet or account required. (Unclear on first party toner req.) Costs $150 more. https://smile.amazon.com/HP-LaserJet-M234dwe-Wireless-6GW99E...

I wouldn’t call their marketing “clear”, which inevitably leads most consumers to ask “why would I pay more for the same thing?”, but it’s also unfair to say that HP is turning their entire product line into a bait-and-switch gambit (which is the general subtext of this whole conversation).

HP is running a business. Ink and toner are great long-term revenue streams, but they aren’t guaranteed. So HP sells one SKU that (probably) covers the cost of production, and hopes that they get some fraction of that long tail (if only in brand familiarity/loyalty), and because the printer market is so driven by negative margin hardware, they have a second SKU for a subsidized printer with an implicit contract, guaranteeing ink revenues for longer.

Could they do a better job of clarifying the options? Absolutely.

Is what they’re doing “shady”, “dirty”, or borderline illegal? Probably not.

Could a lot of this confusion be cleared up by just saying it’s a subsidized purchase? I expect you’d have to ask the wireless telcos about that…


OR companies are reaching a tacit agreement not to provide "pre-jailbroken" printers anymore. That agreement may be tacit.


The mass market for consumer printers probably wants (1) a cheaper price, (2) compatibility with Windows/macOS/Android/iOS, and (3) features.

They also care about, but won't know/weigh at purchase time: (4) longevity and (5) cheap ink.

I'd hazard if you told customers they could have all the above, but had to install and run a rootkit driver... you'd still have a very successful product on your hands. As long as the driver install was easy enough.


That's the same with 90% of the Internet. You don't pay for content, but immense computing resources are used by the advertisement industry to recover everything.


Wait a minute, wasn't I already installing proprietary drivers in the early nineties? And also, those "standard" protocols, weren't those just simpler versions of this proprietary stuff, using the (yes, this part was standardized) pc ports like LPT or RS-something? The fact that they were documented doesn't make it all that much less proprietary, does it? Still, scummy nonetheless.


Yeah and those drivers did all the rendering on PC before sending it to the printer as a bitmap: another way to make the printer cheaper. Good office ones spoke PS and let you offload the PC immediately.


I'd be sufficiently happy if a printer just accepted writing bmp/gif/jpg/png files to it, because then monsterous proprietary printer drivers wouldn't be necessary. "WinPrinters" were supposed to solve this, since Windows' GDI could do the rasterisation itself (and for non-Windows, similar libraries exist), but clearly that didn't work out. Cheaper, dumber printers with simpler firmware are not a bad thing at all, both for the user and the manufacturer. Unfortunately the latter are more interested in hostile "smart" crap.


> It's unfortunate that printers turned from being based on standard protocols that were documented in the manual they came with (ASCII, ESC/P2, PCL, PostScript, etc.) to these proprietary closed systems. None of the printer manufacturers, including HP, used to be like this.

The subsidized models were always like this. I used to sell this stuff - the HP/Canon/Epson consumer devices were always subsidized by ink sales and sold below margin. The business devices were always different. I still have a LaserJet 6MP that I bought when I was a retail employee of a computer store in 1997 off the floor. The thing is a tank - it also cost $700 1998 dollars. HP still makes similar devices at similar price points.

For my kids, I have a little MFP with instant ink - total cost of $150 for the printer + $180 in ink over 3 years. It’s a good value. Our need for color doesn’t justify a Epson ink tank printer or HP commercial inkjet.


Printers always needed proprietary drivers to print anything besides ASCII text. Even back in the 8 bit Print Shop days you needed to send separate codes to print graphics.

PCL and Postscript are also proprietary and owned by a single vendor.


I've given up on virtually all brands of printers. The last brand standing that doesn't seem like absolute shit is Brother. I have an ~~inkjet~~ laser printer of theirs that I have connected to the network, which I use with IPP and AirPrint with no issues. HP printers have been horrible anti-consumer garbage for as long as I can remember at this point.


My Brother colour laser is an absolute tank (by weight, if nothing else) and happily uses the cheapest eBay toner going. It can sit idle for months then get plugged in and hammer out 400 pages, double sided. I'll never use an inkjet again, they're always nightmares.

We'll see how long it goes before the fuser carks it, but so far it's been pretty cost effective, considering the thing itself was £200.


If it is an older one it will most likely outlive you. We used these in production for daily runs of 1000's of pages and the mechanism would eventually wear out but that's not something that any ordinary mortal will ever see. Fun bit: they even offered to replace the ones that eventually did fail under warranty so that they could strip them to see what failed so they could improve them. Very high standards there.


I have a Brother HL-L2370DW, which only can print black-and-white, single/double-sided. It does those two things like a champ. It feels like a solid, unobtrusive, reliable appliance -- a compliment in the age of smart devices and more than I can say about HP & co.


Have a brother laser. HL2070N. prints just black. Like 10 years. Indestructible. Uses the cheap toner. Nice prints. CUPS. Debian.


I upgraded from my B/W laser to a color laser, both Brother, but I'm keeping the old one in a closet. Someday when if for some reason the new one has problems (or I legit run out of color toner), I know it'll be ready to step in.


Another shill for Brother here. It's a good service day when I can trade HP's hostility circus for a Brother laser.


what model you got? at that price it sounds great


It's a DCP-9020cdw. Sadly I don't think they're still made. Looking it up, I paid about £210 for it in 2018.


Brother recently went as evil as the rest of them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131


I wonder if it's feasible to 3d-print a decent open source printer. Doesn't have to be perfect quality, the old deskjet 500s quality was fine for me.

But I think making a simple inkjet printhead is still beyond a hobbyists effort. Laser printer or dot matrix likewise.


For blocking Brother firmware updates (ports 80 & 443).

update[.]brother[.]co[.]jp -> I blocked this domain and my printer is unable to query for updates. I can still download binaries from Brother's website.

firmverup[.].brother[.]co[.]jp & update-akamai[.]brother[.]co[.]jp Other domains found by people sniffing their printer firmware updates.


To clarify, Brother is deploying toxic firmware to their MFC-3750s. I don't think this is widespread (yet). I did see requests to roll back firmware on a MFC-L3770CDW so other 37xx models may be at immediate risk.

I did see posts about HL-L3290CDW and MFC-L8900CDW with the same No Toner symptom but it wasn't clear they ever had firmware updates.

From what I can tell from your link, the OP there had a HL3070CN. It doesn't appear that he updated the firmware or ran into any No Toner errors. He was sharing reports about the 3750. My similar HL3040CW takes 3rd party cartridges (orig firmware).

My vibe is Brother is test-fouling the water to see how it goes. For my part, I'll research how block firmware updates (not all models have an auto update to disable, IP & url blocking might block driver downloads. We shall see).


> not all models have an auto update to disable, IP & url blocking might block driver downloads

Just don't give a default router to it. Can't update if can't go out.


Came here to post this. The last of the good ones, squandered their reputation.


Was reading reviews for Brother recently.

"The printers keep track of every page that goes through it whether or not you use any consumables and forces you to replace the toners the belt the drum and the fuser regardless of the actual condition of these parts."

And many other reports.

Note: I have a Brother monochrome laser that is great, but it seems like there are no printer companies left standing that I would buy a printer from now.


I have a HL-4150CDN and that's true it asks for a replacement after a fixed page count but it is easy to workaround this by resetting the page count (https://www.inkowl.com/page/tnreset/). I am still using it after more than 10 years with the half-capacity toners it was shipped with.


As I mentioned in another thread, people were complaining that there were not longer any workarounds for the artificial limits.


My understanding was that this was more of a stop sign than a brick wall trying to stop you from printing. I have not seen any examples of Brother enforcing replacements of parts in consumer products. Do you remember the model? There is one example of a multi-color laser printer where it complains about not having genuine toner, but there's a few links of firmware downgrades online if you know where to look.

My experience is that a, sometimes complicated, series of button presses for a specific amount of times resets the counter and it continues printing like usual. For the model I have the reset procedure is just holding the power button while turning it on for a specific number of seconds.


Reviews specifically mentioned that this was not overridable anymore.


I have xerox phaser 6510 color laser, which I like. Built like a rock, works great on third party cartridges.

It does add watermarking (feels like USSR, where KGB took fingerprints of all typewriters), which is despicable, but I think all modern printers do that.


More info:

https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-d...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code


I moved to Canon from HP and have both their Maxify GX7020 [1] and their imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 [2], both of which have a strong Just Works (tm) factor, at least in my experience. I'm a low workload user, and probably do about 300 pages a month on the GX7020 and perhaps 30-40 photos a month on the PRO-1000, the cost per page on the GX7020 is very low, and while the PRO-1000 is much more expensive it's still "cheaper and faster" (cheaper - requires taking a somewhat long-term view on amortization of initial cost; faster - since I'm doing it myself and not waiting for UPS to bring me prints) than outsourcing the print for anything up to about 11x17", but anything larger I still do need to send out.

[1] https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/maxify-gx7020

[2] https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/imageprograf-pro-1000


I only print around once/month (or less), and I've given up on having my own printer.

I get stuff printed at the local library now. Yeah, the per-page costs are relatively high, but I'm not amortising the cost of a printer, I don't have to worry about any kind of ink/toner/printhead/other mechanical issues, and any "profit" that's being made goes towards my local library - which I'm totally fine with.


Yep, I chucked my HP inkjet and got a single function Brother mono laser printer. I figure if I need to print in color, I am probably better off just paying to use a really good photo printer.


Curious, how often do you find yourself printing these days?

At this point I print so infrequently that going to the print shop for $1 is a more sound decision than spending $100 on a printer i use a handful of times a year.


I use the laser printer a lot for hobbies. Example: printing a pattern that I then lay onto a sheet of balsa so I can then cut out the shape.

My wife makes the Christmas cards every year carving a linoleum block, ink-roller, that sort of thing. She also used the laser printer to transfer a design.

Papercraft....

Occasionally a recipe though to add to my recipe book, ha ha.


I spent $100 on a Brother B&W laser in 2010. It's paid for itself many times over, and it's still doing great!


> Curious, how often do you find yourself printing these days?

Main use is that I write music scores which I print (reading them off a tablet won't do). This would be several times a week.

Weekly or so (sometimes more, sometimes less) I print tickets (those with bar codes or QR codes) for concerts and the like. I don't want to rely on a phone for that, my normal phone isn't actually online when I'm not in wifi range and it's cumbersome to drag up a PDF on it. Way easier to bring out a piece of paper from my pocket. And reliable. And yes, boarding passes for flights as well. Reliability is even more important there..

EditAdd: And labels for post packages. It's cheaper to prepare that online and print the label myself, then bring the package to the post office where they'll clamp a transparent plastic sheet over it. If they have to do the label at the post office it'll cost more. It's because when I enter the address etc. online then it'll go directly into their database, and that's why it's more expensive if the post office has to enter it.

My wife has a small class for which she needs to print learning material she's made for her pupils, each time. She also occasionally need to make color prints, and for that we use an HP bought years ago (and deliberately never given Internet access). For the other mentioned stuff we use a b/w laser printer.

None of the above is really feasible for printing at a print shop, would have to drive ten minutes and (these days) go through a toll booth as well. In fact I'm very close to buying another b/w laser printer so that I don't have to go upstairs to get my printouts - I would like to have one real close. Was looking into a low-cost (and small) Brother laser printer for that - now I see they're into shenanigans as well, will have to check carefully before I go further.

So, unlike some other commenters here, I find having a printer (or several) at home is still a must for me. I use print shops only for printing photos (at dedicated photo shops).


True, but print shops are harder and harder to find. I live in Berlin and the closest print shop is almost 2km away.


All DMs and Rossmanns have print service. Are you in a suburb?


Mine does, unfortunately, not offer printing services.


Both of the major private delivery services in the USA, UPS and FedEx, offer printing in their retail locations. So does office supply vendor Staples. There is no equivalent in Germany?


Not really. Shipping companies rarely ever have their own locations and are usually located in some form of kiosk. I don't think there is an equivalent to Stapels in Germany. Another commenter mentioned that DM and Rossmann (CVS, Rite Aid kinda store) offer printing, but that's not at all locations.


is 2km far? that is a very short bike ride, and even shorter drive. As someone who lives in a suburb i regularly drive over 2km just to pickup some takeout food


Generally no. Its about the length of walking that I do to get to work one way. But its a far enough distance to be an inconvenience. I rarely ever print something, but when I do its because there is no other option for me. That usually means its something chore related and adding a 4km round trip walk just to print out a singular page is a pain.


Not the original poster but I also have a monochrome laser printer from Brother. I find myself printing anywhere from 500 to about 3000 pages per year. I find it paid for itself in the first year. I also have one of the "professional" network scanners for digitizing. The printer I got is an MFC with duplex automatic scanning and a flatbed. Occasionally Costco will drop the price by $100 and you get a pretty good deal. Starter toner cartridges are good for about 1500 pages.


I often print off papers to read, something about the form factor just works for me. I do this pretty frequently so it's worth it.

Oh and return labels for packages.


The most common thing I print is return labels for Amazon packages.

Also coloring pages for kids.


At least where I am you can print labels at whatever shipping service they're meant for free of charge (FedEx, UPS etc.) and they also will package the return for you.


That means that I have to go there to drop it off and wait Im line to get served.

If I print the label myself I can just leave it in a box in the store without waiting in line, or better yet, give it to the delivery man next time he comes around.

Seems like a small inconsequential, or rare benefit. But with three kids the delivery guy is by our house every other day


This depends on the type of return and the type of location. Sometimes the location doesn't support this. Sometimes Amazon won't support this.


By me both those companies charge to print labels.


I print when I prep for a meeting so I end up doing it quite a bit.


Unfortunately even Brother has resorted to similar means to locking their cartridges. I got Brother because they have been reliable, but was disappointed to see Epson and others with better Linux support when in the past I had thought Brother had good support. You can use IPP Everywhere or whatever they call it but you lose access to a lot of the printer and page options.


This is the best solution for home use, totally agree. Is a shame that they turned inkjet technology into a scam.


The printer in question is a laser printer, the M209dwe.


I found out long ago that it really is cheaper to replace a color laser printer than the toners in it (printer is approx €150, while a toner set is approx €250). A new printer with toners lasts about 5-8 years as I print very little. So I haven't bought printer toner ever.


I abandoned an HP PageWide color inkjet MFP for a Brother color laser MFP and couldn't be happier. Brother's front panel tech and UI isn't as polished, but the printer is rock solid and the company isn't scummy.

(There's an easily-found way to reset toner counts, for example, and get anther 25-50% more pages from a cartridge. Although I no longer use it as running out of toner mid-job is a hassle. The toner is cheap enough, and long-lasting enough, that I happily set-and-forget with their auto-order system.)

The only thing that's bothered me about them is they're making it harder and harder to figure out how to return toner cartridges for recycling.


Those Pagewides also have expiration dates programmed into their inks. If you install one that's "out of date," the machine will just tell you that it's incompatible. I haven't come across another brand with use-by dates on their inks. Maybe that's why the error message is so cryptic.

The other one (with the bigger Pagewides at least): they had a problem with the formulation of the black ink, where the constituents would separate over time. They changed the formulation and that formulation doesn't dry properly on their own photo paper. I wanted optimal quality photos, so I went through the specific calibration function for the HP Advanced photo paper. Because of the way the machine shuffles the page back and forth in the machine to perform the calibration, all the black was smudged and the calibration would fail every time. When HP support eventually realized I had a point, they told me calibration on HP Advanced photo paper is "not supported." I bet they remove it as an option in later firmware, if they haven't already. I have never dealt with a more user-hostile company than HP.


I quite like Canon Pixma G-series. To refill ink you have to just open build-in catridges and pour ink inside. Manual includes instruction how to reset ink level sensor (not sure why this needed but nice to know anyway). So far (year and half in use, print 1-2 color pages every day) I have no issues.


I’ve got a Brother HL5040 that I bought in 2004 for $200 that’s still going strong.

That said, I find business grade HP laser printers superior to the Brother printers at that price point, and they don’t have any of the shenanigans you find in consumer-grade printers from most brands.


The last HP printer I bought was from eBay ... an earlier model that there are plenty of cheap Chinese refills for.

Still printing with it.


I’m happy with Xerox’s commercial/office color laser printers; I also have one that works fine with IPP and AirPrint.


I've had good luck with Brother. Will avoid HP.

I returned a cartridge at Staples, a few years ago. I think they offered $1-2, not much, but happy they took it. Also try Office Depot.


I have had issues with Brother printers, but I gather those issues were just normal inkjet issues.

(Jets clog, hard to unclog)


I think this is only an issue with the models that end in ‘e’ if I’m not mistaken. They’re pushing it hard, but if you know to look you can find the same model without these absurd restrictions. For example, the HP LaserJet M209dwe (d=duplex, w=wireless, e=HP+) will require an Internet connection and HP’s Smart app, but there is also an HP LaserJet M209dw that does not have these restrictions.


Avoiding any HP printers is a better idea, HP printers are especially evil.


Yeah no. If a company is trying to trick me like this, I won't buy from them. I've learned that lesson many times.

I have an Epson which I'm happy with.


Is it possible to upload firmware from one to another?


Disclosure steganography. Avoid (e)vil?


> this usually doesn't happen until it's too late to return the printer.

Not if you’re in a country with reasonable consumer laws. I reckon this would easily be considered as “not fit for purpose” in most of the EU if you tried to challenge it in small claims.


In the US, you could easily argue that you were unaware of the EULA and want your money back.

If the company refuses, then they are pretty clearly violating contract law. ("By the way, if you read this far, you owe me $10" is not a legimate contract, because you are forced to agree.) If that is the case, then it would be completely reasonable for the courts to render the entire EULA invalid, and fall back on first sale doctrine (no restrictions on the copy of the software you bought, etc, etc.)


What does "easily argue" mean in practical terms? Filing a case in small claims court? Credit card chargeback that inevitably gets disputed by the merchant and reversed? Haranguing customer service until they just give up and send you a coupon? In theory you might have a legal argument, but whether that's of any real use is another matter.


In practice, tell them you will consider the EULA non binding, and would still like your money back.

If they are still dicks about it, figure out what the authors of the EULA were most afraid of, and do that.

Home run fantasy land: Wait until they sue some other user based on a clause in the EULA, then testify in court, causing them to lose that case, and also invalidate the EULA for all their existing customers.


Isn't this the exact reason nearly every EULA has an "if any clause of this is found invalid, the rest still applies" clause? (Are those enforceable?)


In this scenario the user is not accepting the EULA.


Yep, i'd return it, because it doesn't do the thing you bough it for anymore. (EU)


There's a tool called PRET - the Printer Exploitation Toolkit -- "the tool that made dumpster diving obsolete" -- that some of you might find fun and useful. You can use it to test which print protocols (ps, pjl, pcl) the printer uses, and then send files to print directly using one of them. It has a bunch of other interesting functionality too.

https://www.github.com/RUB-NDS/PRET


Why aren’t startups trying to disrupt the printer industry? It’s been a racket for a long time.

The only reason I can think of is that gouging customers must be the only real way to make money in that industry.


Unfortunately, consumers are price sensitive beings even if it doesn’t make sense. We prefer cheaper upfront costs even if it costs more in the long term. For example, a decent toner printer can cost $300 plus $75/cartridge later on. But the $50 printer works “just as well” and has “only” $50 cartridges, so it’s “cheaper” (ignoring pages/cartridge). This leads to a big race-to-the-bottom (like airline seat prices[a]) that makes margins razor-thin. As such, the manufacturers price gouge you on the ink.

[a]: Everyone complains about airline seat spacing, but nothing short of regulation will fix it because the margins are too thin to not pack everyone like sardines. If you have more leg room on your planes, you make less per flight, and that could put you in the negative.


It's actually worse than that. I have a laser printer which costed me $36, came with a toner actually printed over 400 pages. The genuine replacement toner costs $110 but can only deliver nominal 1000 pages. But that not quite a big problem as there are generic toners for around $10 and can actually deliver over 1000 pages. But I heard later models were virtually blocked from using generic toners via automatic firmware update as result quality dropped dramatically.

The Canon inkjet I had was a completely different story. Genuine cartridges cost over $80, can print no more than 100 pages. Most importantly, after I dump the empty cartridges, the scanner stopped working.

We need serious probe into those malicious behaviors.


Our current laser printer for >$300 had to be replaced right out of the box, apparently checking whether that thing turns on without errors is asking too much. Then the replacement couldn't connect with the wifi network.

Maybe there are exceptions beyond consumer price ranges, but the only printer I've seen that actually worked was an inkjet over 20 years ago. Probably because it was too dumb to do anything other than print.


You know you can buy premium seats on most airlines, right? The revealed customer preference is the cheaper ticket. This is a good thing, not a bad thing.

For printers, it's getting hard to even be able to buy something at a premium that will let you refill the toner yourself. But jumping to regulation to fix it is a bit of a leap, especially if your argument relies on the airline ticket thing.


From an economic perspective, regulation is the right thing here.

Free markets work well with 100% transparency. That's the assumption in Adam Smith's models. If I buy a printer, and have complete awareness of the pain it will cause me and the long-term costs, and choose to spend $50 over $100, the free market is working fine.

If I go into a store and can't buy a printer without spending hours reading web pages (thousands of dollars of my time), and buy an inferior option due to intentional opacity, we need regulation.

This is very much the latter and not the former.

Airlines have better transparency than printer makers, by far. I might get ripped off on luggage, but I usually know that buying the ticket. I have no way to know a printer will disable itself in 6 months unless I pay HP off.

I blame Carly Fiorina for cannibalizing HP. Before her, it was a brand you could trust. After her, it's scam after scam. Before her, it had solid and unique R&D and brilliant people wanted to go there. After her, not a single competent engineer will work there. In the meantime, HP stock has not kept up with inflation. HP was just above $20 in 2007, and now it's just below $30. It has no fundamentals or competitive advantage in any real way.


It is a bad thing to drive the markets towards people’s bad habits to only provide them with a product they hate.

In your airline example, focusing on low price is what has lead to budget airlines charging $80 for a carryon.

People just end up spending money they didn’t know they were going to have to spend on a product they probably didn’t want and is often worse quality than the competition.

It’s only good business because people are idiots and the people in these games are out to fleece idiots, not build a brand.


It's funny you mention the whole airline thing. Airline's don't even make money from passengers buying tickets at this point. It's a net-loss in most cases when people fly. They make their profits from loyalty programs mostly. Airlines are banks at this point and operate as such mostly. People flying and travelling is second-hand now.


It's a dieing market. How are you going to get VC money to build into a market that is saturated and has negative growth.

May as well pitch them on manufacturing floppy disks while you're at it. That's a better market because the only competition is new old stock and used disks.

Ink jet is terrible unless you print at least a few times a month, better if you print a couple times a week. Even then, it's not great. Laser is decent, but you have to actually pay for the equipment; once you do, they do scale down to very occasional printing, toner doesn't dry out, etc. I'm sure some of the rubber pieces will fail over time, used or not, that's just how rubber is, but in most climates, that's stil going to take a while.


> Why aren’t startups trying to disrupt the printer industry?

Related question "Ask HN: Why are there no open source 2d printers?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786721 with the top comment from somebody who worked at HP printer division (hint: patents)


As I understand it, it's also pretty hard to get right: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/why-paper-jams... / https://archive.vn/SJlAS

“The tolerances are very tight,” Ruiz said. “When you’re moving a box from here to there, if you’re off an inch it’s probably fine. But our images cannot be off by more than eighty-five microns”—a third of a thousandth of an inch—“or else they’ll be fuzzy.”


It would be as viable as disrupting the cassette industry. A printer is quickly becoming a thing the average person doesn’t own.


A printer is quickly becoming a thing the average person doesn’t own.

Even the U.S. Postal Service has noticed this.

When shipping a package, you can buy the postage online, then use a QR code on your phone to print the paid label at the Post Office and drop off the package at the same time.


That is easier than handing a clerk a banknote?


Easier than waiting in line for 20 minutes with who knows what virii circulating.


"Virii" means "men": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vir#Latin


Actually, the plural of "vir" is "viri"; Latin "virus" doesn't really have a plural but if it did it might be "via"; "virii" isn't the plural of anything; if it were, it would be of "virius" which I'm pretty sure isn't a Latin word at all. (If there were an adjective "virus" its comparative would have "virius" as one of its forms, but it wouldn't become "virii" in the plural, and in any case I don't think there is any such adjective.)


Wiktionary shows it has "virī", with a long i. I guess the double i is just a way to write the long i when you don't have macrons at hand, but I have never studied Latin, so I don't really know.


The answer is simple. There is not enough margin. Most if not all printers are sold at loss then the vendors will recoup via consumables.


This one trick Venture Capitalists don't want you to know.


I've had absolutely excellent experience with my Brother black and white laser printer, cost 100 €, with casual printing I only had to replace the toner cartridge once in about 5 years for 25 €


Because the big manufacturers sell a billion printers and trillion units of ink every year and can make enough money due to volume of their sales. A small startup can't and will have to sell their printers and/or ink at a much higher price.

Unless someone comes up with a phenomenally cheaper way of manufacturing printers and the ink, there's not a chance a startup will succeed. I don't think that's gonna happen.


One way to reduce manufacturing costs would be to reduce model churn, so all the tooling is amortized over a longer lifespan.

In terms of actual functionality, what's that different between a SOHO laser or home-inkjet printer you buy today, and one made 5 or 10 years ago? Resolution sort of plateaus because beyond 600, maybe 1200dpi, you're seeing diminishing returns. Output speed is capped by dry-time on inkjet (you don't want pages landing in the output tray and smearing the one below) and by power consumption of the fuser on laser. And I suspect that most of the rasterization smarts have been moved to the host, so it's not like there's that much there left to upgrade. The one thing I could say is "maybe duplexers" but they're also established tech, just cheaper and more common.

With a sensible design, they could be using the same basic chassis-- mechanism and cartridge designs-- for 10 years or more, and if they had to design a new control board with some new wireless doodad or USB type Q, that's one small part that can be plugged into an established design.

I'd be perfectly happy with a new HP Laserjet 5. Hell, I'd probably be happy with a new version of the Panasonic dot-matrix I had in high school, if it had Ethernet connectivity.


There is virtually no way. Most if not all printer on the market are sold at loss, even at massive scale. The possibilities to lower the cost have been exhausted. There is absolutely no chance a startup can get around that hard limit.


Funny, when I read "startup disrupting the industry" I translate that to "new ways to screwing customers just like the old ways".


It is, but often for a very brief moment, it's the consumers that come up ahead - quality is high for an MVP) and prices are low (or free), as long as the startup is burning VC money as if it was hydrazine in a rocket.

Of course the money eventually runs out, and those startups are forced to do some nasty things to the customers, who may now find themselves with no one to jump to, as competitors are long dead. But hey, we're talking about printer market here. The incumbents are the leaders in nasty, underhanded, abusive business practices (as well as planned obsolescence, wastefulness, destroying the environment and the climate...) for the entire tech sector. I just can't imagine a startup making this market worse when it runs out of VC subsidies and has to actually make money. Even if it ends up killing the whole market... well, this is printers we're talking about, it's a dying market already, isn't it?

So in this one, rare case, I think it would actually work out great in the end. Of course this is also why no sane investor will fund such startups...


Only after IPO or acquisition though :-)


Classic disruption starts at the low end of the market and moves up. Actually good printers need to start out more expensive. Whatever process might eventually result in commercially viable good printers, it wouldn't be a "disruption", not in the good ol' Innovator's Dilemma sense. :(


The margins in the printer industry must be razor-thin, that's why.


Also, the technology is pretty hairy, lots of patents (enforceable ones, too), and a very demanding customer base.

I used to work for a company that made a very nice, but expensive, dye-sub printer.

They decided not to continue the line, which disappointed a lot of folks, as the printers actually had some of the best tech, in them, but it wasn't worth it.


> lots of patents

Printers from 20 years ago were pretty ok, so patents shouldn't matter much by simply building old-fashioned ones.


I would not be surprised if newer parents shadow the public domain stuff. Patent evergreening is the term of art if you wanna know more.


They are, and in this age of paperless everything, less and less useful to the average consumer. Anyone who still does a lot of printing is going to go with something that can better handle the volume, like a laser printer.


Oh well, the margin for the printers is mostly negative. For consumables, the margin is actually super high. But you simply cannot get into the market without a popular printer, isn't it?


In consumables, they are competing with third-party ink/toner - which is pretty much the reason for most of their nasty behavior. Still, it's their choice to sell hard to replicate printers at cost, and recoup losses on selling much easier to replicate ink/toner. They could do it the other way, but they don't, and I'm not clear exactly why.

At this point, I suspect there may be a rule in economics that says roughly: it's better if your customers have to spend less money with you, but more often, than more money but less frequently. I.e. it's better to have them spend $1 every month with you than $12 every year. And I feel it could hold even if you correct for time value of money - it seems the businesses see some value in the frequency of repeat interactions with a customer itself.


Which is why they do this junk, they are trying to squeeze every penny out


Dont get a HP+ printer. HP printers come in two fashions. A plain version and a HP+ one. While the hardware is the same the former are slightly more expensive and, the latter require you to use HP+. You can tell which is which by the product code (HP+ have their product code end on an _e_)

Measured by the standards of the printer industry I was pleasantly surprised to see HP posting the online requirements very clearly on their website: - Internet Access (the German version is even stronger on that requiring „constant internet access“ - A HP Account

https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/hp-plus.html


Reading through comments here makes me wish for a wiki documenting decent laser printers with GNU/Linux support and any info about them that might be helpful. Something like the thinkwiki for ThinkPads.

Browsing some local auction sites, I'm seeing laser printers from HP, Samsung, OKI, and others, but I don't know how to easily find out what's worth using. If I were looking at routers I could refer to the openwrt wiki before buying. Anyone know of a site like this that exists already?

I'm kind of curious about thermal printers as well. Printing out a grocery list or QR code on receipt paper sounds neat.


My impression was that most laser printers had a postscript compatible interface and/or could print from basically any input/format. At least for network printers.


Is that app for phones only or also for classic computers? I don't think it is reasonable to assume a phone is needed to use a printer. Information on devices made for carrying around doesn't usually need to be printed.


I don't understand how management makes a decision at HP. Do you guys actually use your own printers or do you have 24/7 person who prints stuff for you and your kids all the time?

I need to go through their shitty app, sign up, sign in just to print something on my own printer. From time to time they have bugs in the app and I am kicked out of my own printer because app always needs to be logged in with user.

Come on HP, maybe drop this bullshit "better user experience" practices? I bought a hardware from you, take my money, print and shut up


I used to be a very loyal HP printer customer. I started buying them with the original LaserJet, back in the early '80's. They were around $3,500 at the time.

As time went by the various new models started to come with "personalities". A few years ago I finally had enough. I was not going to blindly buy product from this company any more. They obviously did not care enough about the customer to deliver a good product.

When the time came to replace them we tossed all of our HP's and got printers made by Brother. So far, so good. Not much to complain about other than some misguided person decided the printer should emit a sound after receiving a fax and that sound should be exactly that you hear during an emergency broadcast interruption in the US (or close enough). Silly things that happen across cultures and regions when people don't bother to check products to make sure they fit the context.

Thsi reminds me of a product Sony introduced a very long time ago. They had a division that designed and marketed tape-based data storage systems. I believe this was in the early '90's. This product offered massive storage for the times. They named it "PetaFile". Imagine the surprised when they started to get feedback on this name. Nobody was going to buy a "PetaFile". The name soon changed to PetaSite.


It seems like this agreement should be agreed to before purchase of the device. It is a revision of the buy-sale deal at the store. Even worse, HP isn't even a party to the retail sale (yes it is their product, but the store sold it to me, not HP).


I cancelled my monthly subscription for hp ink cartridges and was surprised that the existing cartridges became unusable. I had to buy a whole new set of ink.

I imagine some doc somewhere tells you this will happen. Regardless, I will never subscribe to HP again and have started looking at new printers.


When a company takes an action solely to limit competition with no consumer benefit, they should be immediately investigated for antitrust behavior.


I wonder if that's "only" for the very first setup or every time you install the printer driver or something like that. Otherwise the printer will be useless once HP turns off that particular server or pulls the app. What a shit company.


It checks regularly, and if the server is unreachable for any reason the printer will refuse to print until it’s able to reconnect.


NEVER buy a HP printer! They always find new ways to screw you.


These shenanigans with refills and unscrupulous and buggy apps is pretty much why I changed to a different brand ink refill tank based printer after buying HP for the longest time - never buying HP again.


By the way, never connect your printer to the internet; it will download software updates that will make your life miserable, e.g. by detecting the newest generation of "fake" cartridges.


Every company and every individual involved in the printer business needs to be fired and replaced with a completely new cohort of people. They have utterly failed; it doesn’t need to be this bad.


Is there a reason why somebody would buy a HP printer in 2022?


Anyone in my family, probably yours too.

To the outside tech user, they just want a printer and HP is global brand. My father would, considering our first ever computer was an HP so he'd be stuck with the mindset everything HP is great.


Because you need a printer, and their competitors are all just as scummy?


I bought a laser printer by Brother a couple years ago and never had any problems with 'fake' toners, and it also runs perfectly using CUPS on Linux.

I suppose people don't research refill options ahead of buying a printer? This ongoing maintenance cost would be the first thing I'd look into.

My initial question wasn't meant to be a rhetorical one. I was genuinely curious if there is any upside/reason why one should buy HP (print quality or whatever.)


Read the thread. Newer brother printers are also getting tricker with non-oem toners.


Well, thats depressing to hear.


I think HP are worst. Then Epson. Then Canon. Then Brother.


If you are willing to go to the professional/office grade, I can recommend the Canon imageClass line (caveat: only the models with native Postscript support) for use in Linux or wherever you might not want binary blob drivers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29869389

Avoiding their blobs may deny you of advanced features, but for documents where you're not aiming for max photo quality or color matching, it works very well.


I recently bought a Brother HL-4040CN off craigslist. Could not be happier.

It's 13 years old, but still runs like a champ. The network features are dead simple, like you'd expect. For $100, I think even the lifetime of the toner cartridges it came with is likely to be worth the cost.

I fully expect this printer to outlive my need to print things out.


Because it’s a decent no-hassle, networked all-in-one and the ‘sample’ toner cartridges that they come with last me about six years.


Let's stop calling it ink and start calling it licensing fluid, because it is.


Don't buy stuff from HP. They're scamming customers, it's known.


It's a mistake to buy printers from any company who engage in such practices - switch from HP to Brother or Kyocera if you can.

It's not just ink: they want to force you to use particular paper also, not sure if there are any micro-signs on printer paper to identify vendors or firmware code to check for it, but I wouldn't be surprised.


class action. you bought a printer, you no longer have a printer. don't sue for $$$, sue for the private key so you can flash the firmware. it is the only way you can be made whole


Where are all the printer firmware hackers at?


Very likely, there is secure boot.


It seems like basic laser printers ought to be sort of commoditized by this point, shouldn't they? For my modest needs, laser printers were good enough 15 years ago. What's the printer equivalent of, like, a $12 Logitech mouse? What's the Kirkland brand jeans of printers?


This is a lame strategy! What kind of people do this? What kind people pay employees to deceive the customers.


The sad truth is that no printer company that doesn’t do this is going to be able to compete. HP and the like sell their printers at a loss, and consumers aren’t going to pay multiple X the cost of one of these types of printers to avoid the shenanigans. Any company who tries to price the printer itself at the appropriate cost isn’t going to sell enough.


Any source on that? I find it hard to believe that something as commonplace as a printer, a technology that has been around for so many decades, is hard to manufacture profitably.

Maybe I'm wrong, since I have nothing to go by besides a gut feeling mixed with assumptions and a sprinkling of common sense, so I would love a source.

The only scenario I can think of which makes sense to me is that making printers is a patent minefield, making it difficult/impossible for a competitor to come in and disrupt anything (plus it's not a very attractive industry anyways). There's probably also a lot of anti-competitive stuff going on too, like supplier contracts that prohibit working with other printer companies, etc.


The problem isn't manufacturing. You can perfectly manufacture a great printer, but when HP and the like are selling printers at loss to make money off cartgridges, many consumers will simply buy the cheaper one: HP.

Sure, you'll have some smarter customers who made their research and picked you, but it will probably not enough of a margin to compensate against a giant like HP.


It doesn’t matter how cheaply you make it, HP can make it just as cheaply… and then they will sell it for even less because they sell at a loss.

You then have two printers, one selling for a lot more than the other but having all this ink shenanigans… and consumers will buy the ink shenanigans every time, because the sticker price is all that matters.


The kind that want to make a profit and see that doing this is profitable.


I have b/w HP laser printer, one of the office oriented series. His cartridges has some chip and 2 contacts on it. After a while after purchasing and some amount of pages it refused to print because of low toner. I have simply covered contacts with tape - and printer works again! However, HP software started to complain that cartridge is missing. For every page printed lol. While actually printer was working. Solution - uninstall HP software and use some generic compatible driver. And after with this cartridge it printed at least as double amount as before it become “empty”.


Am I missing something, why not just agree to it and then disregard? There’s no way the contract is enforceable, doubly when it was forced on you.

It’s like how putting up a sign that says “we are not liable for blah blah” doesn’t mean shit.


You can’t. Their cartridges have some sort of way to recognize only HP cartridges (rfid? NFC?)

I think this may be my last HP printer as well. Company has a f the consumer mentality.


As part of agreeing you have to connect the printer to the internet and create an account.


The printers refuse to print if you disconnect them from the internet.


I saw this same behavior and was absolutely furious at having to agree to it. I've got a decade-old HP laser printer that I refill the toner on, and it's still chugging along. Recently, I had to set up a printer for my church, someone else had bought an HP. After seeing the setup shenanigans, I have decided to never buy another HP printer. In fact, just a few weeks after setting up that one, I was tasked with buying another printer for a different office at the church: went with a Brother and it was a breeze to set up without any onerous terms to agree to.


Printers need to do what mobile phones do, e.g.

$200 for printer get whatever ink

$100 for printer, $100/year for 3 years ink contract

Then they have their cake (cheap upfront price) and eat it (without needing DRM shit cat and mouse games)


I came across this last week when I got the HP Laserjet MP110we to replace a 12 year old Samsung printer that I just couldn’t find drivers for for the latest macs (Samsung sold their printer division to HP). They also have chips in the toner to detect an unofficial one and try to sell you a subscription. Seems like multiple steps backward although Wi-Fi printing from phone and laptops without cables is pretty cool (I realize I’m years late to this)!


FYI: This is probably unenforceable in most jurisdictions, including the US. Look up the term "unconscionability", particularily in US common contract law.


This is probably unenforceable in most jurisdictions, including the US

Tell that to the printer and see how far you get.

Apparently it is being enforced. By HP. Otherwise this post wouldn't exist.

HP's lawyers know nobody is going to spend $5,000 on a lawyer to get Justice for a $100 printer.


Apparently many people are able to sue. Look up the "Leacraft v. Canon" case, which is somewhat related.


Who said anything about lawyers? IANAL, but I'm pretty sure this is well within the remit of small claims court for the US, and the EU should have some agency whose job it is to deal with this.


What about a class action lawsuit? Surely there are some tech-oriented lawyers trawling HN/etc for class action ideas by now.


Yeah, so how can OP get his printer to ... print?


We own an HP printer. The other day my wife told me the printer refused to print unless she renewed her subscription. I told her no way in disbelief. That can't be legal. She renewed the subscription and was able to print again. I'm hoping there's some kind of confusion, but waiting for the subscription to lapse to see if it happens again.


Anyone recommend a decent color laser printer for home office? My spouse is a private violin teacher who runs a studio out of our home.


I use a brother colour laser and I am happy with it. I am an occasional user: kids play and the occasional signature scan.

I don’t have much to say about it, it works, official ink is expensive but fake cartridges work ok. Also refill kits exist but when used on non-fakes it still thinks the cartridge is “empty”. So shitty practices but there are reasonable workarounds.

Having to ecycle cartridges bugs me though. Seems stupid.


Recently bought a new printer, avoided anything with "smart" or "cloud" in the name/description.


That sounds even worse than their previous models, which were „safety locked“ after an update. For the older models it was still possible to downgrade to the initial firmware version, which was a pain to do, though, and disconnect from the www. It‘s unfortunate because they build great hardware.


Also, in order to use the scanning functionality of your machine you need to create an online account.


We’re an IT company and haven’t supplied HP for a while now because of stupid shit like this.


Reading this confirms that not owning a printer is still a good decision. If I absolutely have to print it's a good reason to visit the library or the office. I guess it has been less than 5 times a year for many years now.


Digression: Does anyone have a printer recommendation from a manufacturer that doesn’t pull this crap?

I would love to patronize the least scummy manufacturer. Particularly I’m looking for a larger format printer that can do 11”x17” pages.


Brother is generally good. The model I had (can't remember which) let you override the low toner warning and just print until it runs dry.

No scummy driver shenanigans, works perfectly with third party cartridges. Once you realize the value of not being treated like shit, the price of their machines is pretty reasonable. You do get what you pay for.

Xerox also seems to be less terrible, but I don't have any experience personally.

If you can find a laser printer to fit your needs, choose laser every time. If you specifically need inkjet, you will have to pay extra for a professional model. Also make sure you keep up maintenance so the heads don't clog.

Consumer printers are dirt cheap because these companies sell them at a loss and use shitty tactics to force or trick you into buying only their heinously overpriced cartridges, then buy more than you need, and eventually the printer kills itself to make you buy a new one.

Business oriented printers tend to cost a LOT more, but you get a better quality printer and less evil corporate bullshit.


I have an Epson SC-P600 that prints A3+, with excellent quality (I use it mostly for photos and digital negatives), but it's expensive to use, features questionable design choices (ink pads etc.) requires arcane driver / RIP setups for the best results etc.

A newer model is out (P700) which solves somes issues (like the matte/glossy black ink swap) but is probably more locked down (important if you plan to use for example full greyscale ink sets like the piezography ones).

I had a better experience lately with (smaller, ink bottle type) Canons, I especially like the easily user replaceable print heads. Drivers and software still terrible.

What are you goint to be printing?


Brother’s laser printers are nice. Lexmark also exists, but they’re more of a business brand, and, as such, will cost more


Sadly it seems that Brother's only 11x17 "Ledger Size" printers are inkjet... alas. But the MFC-J5855DW inkjet printer from Brother looks decent. Will look at Lexmark too!

edit: Lexmark does look very nice, but their 11x17 printer is the $3500 C925... which is a bit more printer than I need.


I went down the same rabbit hole after my epson WF-7620 ran out of ink in 9 months and only printed 100 pages at most.

Gotta have 11x17 printing and scanning for control panel drawing packages


With ink drying in heads and lasers emitting unhealthy dust, and manufacturers trying to lock them down, I'm considering a dot matrix printer as my next printer. Back to the roots. Looks like Epson is still making them, even including an ethernet port.


Dot matrix printers also produce a lot of dust. Like, an incredible amount of dust.


It's not a large format printer but I've got a Xerox B205 and it works well without any shenanigans. Original toner price looks decent to me so I haven't tried 3rd party toners for it, but the option is there and it works well.


I'll take Brother printers and massive toner cartridges over HP any time.


This kind of pretend-compatibility requirements should be made illegal.


I think my next printer will have to be a non-HP.

I've wrangled my current LaserJet, but I keep hearing stories that make the HP company sound like the kind I want nothing to do with anymore.


My Epson got crap printing color; so I got suckered into buying an HP. Color with non-HP cartridges prints outline.

Epson reliably chucks on in B&W.

The OEM cartridge vendors should be publishing HP workarounds.


Buy one of their cheap sub-$100 laser printer if you don't need colors. I have been printing daily for more then a year on the same toner cartridge, and replacements are cheap.


Better yet, don't buy a modern HP or support any company that does this in their product lines.


Sure... but that's like saying "don't get a cellphone because they all spy on you"... it's not very practical and/or cheap to do.


Does it come with a smartphone? If not, it’s sold fraudulently.


Thanks for sharing this. I would love to know if there is a printer brand that I could buy in 2022 and not be held hostage by something like this.


also internet connection is mandatory!

only for a few models. it’s a fair tradeoff for the reduced initial cost. i imagine ultimately we will see free printers.


Wait until you hear about the yellow dots and EURion.


We are in dire need for OSH laser printers.

Literally the moment there's an acceptable OSH printer, it's the end of the tiranny.


HP and its crappy tactics.

I really wonder how long they will survive in the upcoming era, with this mentality.


Are there any printer startups trying to disrupt this extremely user-hostile space?


That delay makes it look like a drip campaign?

Not happy that this strategy is expanding to hardware.


Anyone who buys HP inkjet printers now has only himself to blame.


Nah that would be getting a HARD return from me


What do hp printers do that Brother doesn't?


It was half the price. Should have known better.


Automatically order new ink when running low.


I have 3 Brother printers and they all notify me ahead of time when laser power or ink is slow. When it's "very low" I can still override the error and print a few more pages before ordering new cartridge that costs $10 for 1500 pages


Also, many Samsung printers are now under HP.


make a rule on your router to deny all traffic going outside from the ip of your printer and the nagging goes away.


The thing won't print without internet access at all, I've dealt with a few of these at work. We've had to tell people to take them back since they're basically unworkable.


Tried that. Still couldn't print.


HP inkjet printers. I’ve never seen this with my laser (m255dw).


This is happening on a laser printer, the M209dwe.


You have the dwe printer, which is clearly marked as requiring HP+:

https://a.co/d/1H1aI10

The alternative dw printer is not marked as such but is over twice as expensive.

I hate printers as much as the next person but in this case it's pretty clear what folks are getting into.

However I'm seeing that HP wants to slowly transition to only the e line. If that happens, I'll be pretty incensed.


I bought it at a bricks and mortar store. That notice is buried in the fine print on the box. And of course the box isn't on display at the store, just the printer.

It's nice to see the notice displayed prominently on Amazon. I guess this is one time my aversion to Amazon burned me.


TBH my experience with HP inkjet printers has been so outright crappy that I would never buy an HP laserjet either. They don't deserve my business and can go fuck off.

I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who feel the same way. It's like the opposite of the halo effect.


You haven't yet.


Why would HP gouge home users without also gouging the more lucrative business market?


One would assume that the business market has more money and more lawyers to point at suppliers who annoy them. Plus a greater network of people, e.g. at business gatherings, they can use to name-and-shame said suppliers.


So you bought a printer that is marketed as “Works only with original HP toner; requires HP account, internet to operate” and now you're mad that it requires you to use original HP toner?

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-laserjet-m209dwe-printe...


That notice is buried in the fine print on the box, the box I didn't get to see until checkout at the bricks and mortar store I purchased it at.


Regardless of what was advertised, I wish we had more "right to repair" laws that made this scummy corporate behavior illegal.

All this "smart" shit is just an excuse for corporations to have more tracking and more control.


You prefer every printer manufacturer do this instead of none of them?




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