HP Inc settles printer toner lockout lawsuit with a promise to make firmware updates optional
HP Inc settles printer toner lockout lawsuit with a promise to make firmware updates optional
60 comments
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Anytime a company reduces the functionality of a device through software or firmware they should have to offer to buy back the hardware. The depreciation rate should be set at time of purchase so you know how much you get if they neuter it a year from now.
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Why allow depreciation? You wouldn't have bought it with the reduced functionality, and it's going to cost you time and effort to remove it and replace it with something else. Inflation will reduce the value more than enough.
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@roofuskit@lemmy.world 2028!
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Yeah, but that means they don't get your money anymore! Think of the
profitsshareholderschildren!
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Or they could like... just not be dicks and supply firmware updates without the lock-in, instead of having to trade off security to use your device however you want.
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I must buy a printer soon. Thank you for reminding me to avoid HP products.
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brother laser printer
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This is the way. My brother printer is a hl2040, came out sometime in the early 2000s. It still prints. I've replaced the toner cartridge once since my Dad gave it to me back in 2016.
The other day I needed to print something out and this was after I had reinstalled linux.
Just fired right up, instantly recognized. Its one of the best pieces of hardware I own.
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Are "brother" the nice guys at the moment?
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Laser printer and probably brother, it's worth the extra up front cost 10 fold
For an old color Dell Laser printer I got from a thrift store years ago I can find 4 color sets of toner for it for $40-60
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brother is currently enshittifying right now.
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Oh BROTHER, not this again.
On a more serious note, I've been all about brother printers for a few years now and couldn't be happier.
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meantime turns out was misunderstanding/bullshit. I mean even the video title was changed. maybe reroute your rage energies elsewhere
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Called brother about this and talked through the issues raised by Rossmann, they convinced me enough to buy 3 printers from them this month.
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My current brother printer is a pile of shit.
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I've been rockin my HL3170CDW for many years now. I have absolutely no issues with this printer, and I'll buy nothing else.
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"Settles" lol the lawyers got their payout
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I've never interpreted settling to imply lawyers don't get paid.
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Lawyers get paid either way, but that's about the most that comes of it. Settling means no legal precedent has been set, so businesses can pull this bullshit again in the future
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Even better, the whole HP printer is optional.
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Well, here's the story: The old HP MuFu finally caved in, so dad was going to the local multimedia retailer. I told him to get a Brother Ecotank, since i have to support it. But the store only had HP MuFu, so he got a HP MuFu that is even worse than the old one, despite being a laser printer instead of an inkjet. And the f*cking toner cost a whole 140€.
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Bullshittery aside, "HP Inc." Instead of just "HP" Is on the nose and has to be deliberate on the journalists behalf
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The actual reason is because in 2015 "Hewlett Packard" split into two companies, one called HP, Inc, and one called HP Enterprise. The print and consumer PC business went to HPI, while the server and network hardware went to HPE. So, writing just "HP" could be interpreted as ambiguous.
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Simple fix here, stop buying the companies that do this. I bought a brother printer and I won’t go back.
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This was in the related articles: https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/printers/brother-denies-firmware-blocks-third-party-toner-and-ink-use
And I believe them. The reddit post in Rossman's video was 3 years old. I have personally installed and updated 5 Brother printers in the last year and they all still run on 3rd-party toner.
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That sucks, I bought mine a few years ago and haven’t had any issues yet. 🤞
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Sometimes I wonder why there's no DIY Paper printer after seeing so...much shit in Printer Company ?
We had advance DIY 3D Printer that can made various objects with various size and materials and yet there's no DIY Paper printer until now-
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Impressive...sadly it produce low quality print, but it's good to see somebody actually made DIY Paper printer
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It's not really surprising. The demand for printers has fallen off a cliff due to wide acceptance of digital alternatives. People barely need printers now and as such aren't willing to pay much for them.
This is further exacerbated by the reality that a printer is actually a fairly high precision device and expensive to manufacture.
So you have an expensive to manufacture device that consumers aren't willing to pay much for. So what happens? They adopt a consumable based business with the printers being locked down to force you to buy their overpriced, high margin consumables that have a low absolute price so consumers don't think about it much.
Let's say that we regulate away this lock in. What will happen? Well the price of printers would have to climb to match their actual cost to manufacture. That price would likely turn off consumers from buying them at all. The end result would be the end of the printer business altogether. Maybe not a bad thing as not printing at all is likely a better ecological outcome.
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I have an epson eco tank. No more ink cartridges.
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What about printing head replacement?
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From my experience, those last years. But they are indeed a bit expensive... I have had my eco tank for the last 5 years, only had to replace the b/w printer head after around 4 thousand prints, and I'm almost sure it was my own fault for using expired low-quality ink that I had bought in bulk for super cheap.
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As someone who's worked on printer firmware before, it makes me really sad that a company can get away with making a consumer decide between getting access to any of the actually useful changes that engineers — who have no say over ink cartridge policy — put effort towards making the best product they could, or not having said ink cartridge policies forced on them.
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Still not interested in a fucking printer.
60 comments