Made a solemn vow years ago to never ever buy another HP product again when I realised that the inkjet printer I bought in the UK from a major UK retailer was region-locked to US ink. No official HP ink cartridge bought in the UK would work with it and there was nothing official I could do to change it. Had to muck about with refills, blank chips and ink systems for years until the happy day when the thing broke and I threw it as hard as I could into the e-waste skip.
The rot set in with printers when the technology got good enough for there not to be any easy improvements and the mindset changed from building a tool to help people create, to seeing customers as a resource to be exploited.
Every user-hostile bit of nonsense from shoddy software to region-locked, staggeringly overpriced ink stems from there.
Today I replaced a HP Laserjet that ran a firmware update. Shame on me for not keeping it from phoning home.
Four toner cartridges inside, 70% filled or higher, and after the update I see "supply error" on the screen. Turns out my aftermarket toner cartridges, which have worked for several hundred prints without problem – and I'm on the fourth purchase of these same aftermarket cartridges – are now DRM locked and will not print.
block out all from inet 10.10.10.5 to any
I'll not make this mistake with the Brother I'm unboxing now.
> The rot set in with printers when the technology got good enough for there not to be any easy improvements and the mindset changed from building a tool to help people create, to seeing customers as a resource to be exploited.
Sounds exactly like my experience with a low/mid-tier HP laptop a few years ago. Full of bloatwear, constantly overheating, gave up after a couple of years of light use.
for years we bought HP in my family, don't know why. After we got our hands on an Epson it was like seeing the light for the first time.
I took a risk with an ultra-budget Canon more recently and was pleasantly surprised with their linux support (via generic wireless printing and scanning)
The rot set in with printers when the technology got good enough for there not to be any easy improvements and the mindset changed from building a tool to help people create, to seeing customers as a resource to be exploited.
Every user-hostile bit of nonsense from shoddy software to region-locked, staggeringly overpriced ink stems from there.