Current Events > HP wants you to pay up to $36/month to rent a printer that it monitor

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/

also always online, selling your data

HP has always been straight ass unless you take their piece of shit computers and put a Linux distro on them to make them useful, and their printers have been even worse so this is laughably dumb

You can get a decent one for like $100. Renting one is something you do if you're stupid especially at $36 a month.

This is going to be the future of everything they are going to bleed us dry and we will have a subscription for everything. As soon as your paycheck is deposited it will be gone to pay for all your various subscriptions.

Remember that you will own nothing and be happy article that is what will happen. I mean who ever would have thought they would be paying a monthly fee for a printer.

People still buy HP printers?!

This isnt anything new for companies. My workplace rents a printer.

Being applied to individuals is just ridiculous though.

This is like BMW (I think), wanting you to pay a subscription to activate the heated seats that come with the car.

Canon printer is like $20 at walmart.

Cheaper to buy a new one than refill the ink too as new one has ink lol.

We should put all HP execs in prison for life.

I swear to fuck they are so goddamn vile I hate them almost as much as Trump and Insurance companies and I don't even own or use a printer.

Quicksilver posted...

This is going to be the future of everything they are going to bleed us dry and we will have a subscription for everything. As soon as your paycheck is deposited it will be gone to pay for all your various subscriptions.

Remember that you will own nothing and be happy article that is what will happen. I mean who ever would have thought they would be paying a monthly fee for a printer.

We should uniornically ban renting and subs entirely in many categories

What kind of printer is this to make it look like a good option to anyone? Must be some high tech industrial type shit

The only HP product I own now is a wireless dongle Bluetooth mechanical keyboard. I run that bitch under running water with the batteries out to clean it & it still works after every time, makes cleaning it out easy.

Can't say what I would get now given HP's reputation otherwise

LeoRavus posted...

What kind of printer is this to make it look like a good option to anyone? Must be some high tech industrial type shit

Bog standard but it serenades you with its dying gasps as it thristily uses way more ink then it needs to and records your every move and sound so marketing companies can target ads and feed your stuff into A.I models.

Now with thrice the jams and errors as an added bonus!

Irony posted...

You can get a decent one for like $100. Renting one is something you do if you're stupid especially at $36 a month.

Well, that's the most expensive option. The cheapest option is only $6.99 a month.

It's still a terrible deal though. It sounds like you can barely print anything with that plan.

This is late-stage capitalism, and you will own absolutely nothing.

LeoRavus posted...

What kind of printer is this to make it look like a good option to anyone? Must be some high tech industrial type shit

They dont even offer laserjet for this, which is what most businesses larger than 10 people use.

LightHawKnight posted...

They dont even offer laserjet for this, which is what most businesses larger than 10 people use.

Depends on what they're printing. If it's like color images on product packaging that's not laser

I wonder if anyone will actually buy this subscription?

Remember a time when you bought and owned things? Pepperidge Farm would like to offer you a basic subscription plan of $9.99 / month to remember.

Honestly, the only bad part about this deal is the limit on the number of pages you can print per month. Without that it would be just like any other contract for business printers.

We have 2 printers in my office that are under contract and are monitored via our internet connection. When they detect that the printers are low on ink, they automatically ship us more before we run out. It's very handy because we don't have to micromanage the ink usage like we do with the other non-contract printers. But it makes sense for us because we're a government office and we go through 1000's of pages per month. This kind of thing is dumb for home use.

You will own nothing and

What a joke. I bet it doesn't even run DOOM either.

WingsOfGood posted...

Canon printer is like $20 at walmart.

Cheaper to buy a new one than refill the ink too as new one has ink lol.

I hate the printer market so god damned much

I don't want to be wasteful and just buy a new printer constantly.
But they mark up the ink refills so god damned much.
So I end up just going to extreme lengths to avoid printing things b/c I don't want to refill my ink for $30 every year (even if I only print like 10 pages, it always magically "runs low") but also don't want to keep sending printers to the junkyard.

It's legitimately hard to think of another industry for an actual physical product that is so universally and inescapably horrible and predatory.

And even by the printer industry standards, HP manages to hit a new low. Good job, H-Piece of Crap. You continue to surprise me w/ how awful a company you are.

HP trying to burn itself down.
I have a Canon Laser printer. The toner is expensive, but heck if that shit doesnt last forever. So I dont have to buy it that often - Ive only had to do it once so far and Ive had it years (with kids printing for school).

HP stands for Horrible Product. Or Horse Penis.

I haven't owned a printer for over a decade.

I would straight jailbreak my printer before paying a cent for a subscription to use one i own

TheHoldSteady posted...

also always online, selling your data

I, for one, won't be printing illegal content anymore.

(That's sarcasm, Feds.)

They've been selling printers that only work with a subscription already so I guess its nice of them to just let you pay the sub and not have to pay $200 for the printer + the sub.

We had one for my girlfriend during college. She ended up taking a year long break between semesters so she cancelled the subscription. When she went to reactivate it HP told her she never actually cancelled the subscription and that she had to pay them over $300 in missed sub fees or they wouldnt turn the printer back on.

Look for a older one, a model at least before all this.

I had an HP printer about 10 years ago for 3 days. It was by far the worst piece of shit printer I've ever used and that's saying something.

I don't want to be a nave optimist, but this kinda pushes towards reduced paper-usage.
I'm sorta for that, although there always should be room to have a hardcopy of important documents.

The existing ink/printer cost situation has been pretty skewed for a while imo. Unless you have some kind of killer printer and regularly print high volume, you kinda do fall into the predicament of whether or not buying a new printer more often makes more sense than repeatedly buying ink. From a global view, that's ridiculously wasteful.

But the nature of a "subscription" also irks me. BMW was fucking stupid for that. Tesla does that although unless you're mad ignorant, it's no secret that anyone that signs up for a Tesla has themselves on something of a leash.

WingsOfGood posted...

Canon printer is like $20 at walmart.

Cheaper to buy a new one than refill the ink too as new one has ink lol.

No... it sure as shit isn't. People are too stupid to do research. A standard cartridge that comes in a printer is only good for up to 50 prints. Conversely, a bottle of printer ink off of Amazon is 11 bucks... for 2 bottles. Your literally paying less than 50 cents per fill up by doing it yourself. It's not a hard process, its just a messy process.

Stallman Was Right