- cross-posted to:
- linux_lugcast
- cross-posted to:
- linux_lugcast
HP launched a subscription service today that rents people a printer, allots them a specific amount of printed pages, and sends them ink for a monthly fee. HP is framing its service as a way to simplify printing for families and small businesses, but the deal also comes with monitoring and a years-long commitment.
#technology #tech #hardware #computers #printers #subscriptions #hp
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Best purchase I ever made was a Brother laser printer back in 2013. Paid $100 for it brand new. Almost 11 years later, I still have it, it prints every time I need it, and I’m still on the toner cartridge that came with it.
I rarely need to print, but when I do, it’s always something important (usually something I have to print, sign, scan, and email back).
Minus the cost of a few reams of paper, $100 has covered my printing needs for over a decade. I rarely, if ever, need a color print, but that’s my only limitation (I think I did a color print at the UPS store a few years ago). For photos, I just have those printed at Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, or just about anywhere.
If you take anything away from this rambling comment, let it be this: Do not buy an inkjet printer, and also don’t buy an HP printer. Laser printers cost a little more upfront, but the long-term costs are much, much less.
The mandatory comment to any printer discussion. Buy a brother laser. Nothing else. Preferably used.
I have an Oki laser printer that I bought for $129. I’ve had it so long I gave it to my kids for university. Duplex, wifi, and I’ve bought two toner cartridges for it in the 8 years we’ve had it.
(Side note: If you go to an airport, you’ll find that the dot matrix printer spewing out the passenger manifest at the gate is often a Okidata Microline-series printer, an updated version of the printer I had in 1992)
Basically, don’t buy an inkjet printer, and don’t buy HP.
Glad to see mention of Oki! Oki is the single most ethical choice. But they pulled out of the US market, sadly enough. The US is no place for ethical products.
Lol, I mean…it’s still solid advice. I know they did eventually start chipping their cartridges, but AFAIK, they’re the least awful manufacturer. If not, please recommend something better as I fear what I’m going to do when this workhorse finally gives up on me.
Yes. We’ve had one Brother for ten years now. Still prints and scans just fine :D
Ive got a brother, but lately Ive resurrected my old HP that I got at Circuit City when they were closing. Just sticking cheapo amazon inks in it. The printer bitches about it, but tough, I’m using that cheap Chinese ink!
I have no complaints about my HP laser printer, although due to the activities at the company at large I will probably not buy one again, assuming this one ever dies and I can find a well supported replacement.
HP has really good Linux support, unfortunately it is better than many companies that “support” Linux, and it is more like their enterprise drivers than the bs they push on consumers. This HP replaced a Brother MFP in fact, because most of the functions did not work in Linux.
Great for you, but capitalism means companies need to make higher profits every year. Brother is still around though so they somehow make it work.
Yes I have a brother. Mostly good. Does have issues with some PS where I get offending commamd was… Also cannot really update the firmware without windows which sucks. Mine is a multifunction printer but I just scan to my phone or a USB. Never tried to connect scanning to Linux.
have to print, sign, scan, and email back
Can’t you scan or photograph your signature and insert it in your word processor?
Not where I live. You either need a physical signature on a piece of paper (can be later scanned) or a “Qualified Electronic Signature” to go full digital. The latter costs money it’s not universally supported - small business owners often have no idea how it works.
Those are the only two options that are legally recognised as valid signature
This is also the only reason why I have a printer.
But Admiral Patrick (sorry, I still don’t know how to link/tag users) wrote he has to scan and email the physical signature from the paper, so it is not really physical anymore? Maybe he has to send the physical paper by snail mail in addition to the email.
The Brother laser printers are awesome honestly. I own one too. Very cheap, and cheap enough to operate. If I want color, I go get it professionally printed (and professional photo printing STILL costs less than inkjets and their cartridges)
Personally I was rather disappointed with my Brother laser printer. Hardware wise, sure, it’s still going after a long time and is still on its first toner cartridge. Software wise, I can’t recommend it. Will not print without first running a printer troubleshooting process on the computer. At least I have a workaround that works 90% of the time, but a printer that will only wake from deep sleep mode when the troubleshooter forces it to isn’t a printer I’d recommend.
Not that I have any better suggestions. Every printer I’ve ever owned has sucked in at least one way. For some reason no manufacturer has ever succeeded in creating a printer that isn’t evil.
I feel ya. If the printer drivers aren’t OS-native and extremely basic, they’re usually a bloated, buggy mess.
I’ve used mine on Linux with CUPS and it works great. Brother actually provides a
.debinstaller for the drivers which is amazing, but I think I successfully used the “universal” HP LaserJet 4200 driver before I installed that (I swear, that driver works for almost everything). Pretty sure I only installed the official driver to get the duplexing option to work.The only major difficulty I had was getting the scanner drives working with SANE. Connecting over USB was easy, but getting it to scan over the network was a bit challenging. A few years ago, I built a scan server as a Docker image that had SANE, the Brother scan drivers, and the proper config. Now I just point SANE on my PC to that and, like magic, it works – don’t even need to install the scan driver locally.
This is my nix config for our brother scanner. Just run any Linux scanner utility and it just works:
https://git.sr.ht/~pimeys/nixos/tree/main/item/core/home-services.nix#L10
I don’t even have that problem, since the computers around my house use various versions of Windows. So it’s not like a lack of OS-native drivers is the issue. It’s just not a very good printer.
My experience is generally that the drivers and software for HP is better, but the hardware and value for money is better with Brother. That said, I also have to give a thumbs up to the third party ink supplier I’ve been using for the HP printer (which I bought because I needed colour printing for the pre-degree course I did last year), who replaced all of my cartridges free of charge after a firmware update snuck in even with auto-update turned off.
Never buy an HP printer and don’t let your friends by one either. My last HP printer experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly out in my yard over 15 years ago due to a “device” that may have been placed in it. I replaced it with a Brother laser printer. The Brother printer still works fine today.
Just do not buy HP printers.
Lol the printer costs 200 on scamazon…or rent it for 400+ for a year…
The printer is sold at a loss so that they can gouge you on ink, so you would need to factor that into the equation.
…however $400 seems like a lot of ink.
Added the hashtags as a test, buy testing with real content so I don’t have a bunch of useless test posts floating around.
They’d work for someone reading on mastodon.
I will offer to hp that they rent space next to my trash can for $35/month, and I won’t even monitor it. (I might put up a sign saying “PC load letter” and provide a baseball bat)
I want to shove a HP printer in the asshole of the CEO and make him drink buckets of paint.
drink buckets of paint.
You’ll need a HP paint subscription.
No i just use third party ink and we will see how good he paints the printer with it.
The All-In-Plan privacy policy also says that HP may “transfer information about you to advertising partners” so that they can “recognize your devices,” perform targeted advertising, and, potentially, “combine information about you with information from other companies in data sharing cooperatives” that HP participates in.
this
companyabomination is dead to me.Now imagine it printing out adverts whilst you’re not using it.
If they also provided the paper, this is definitely something I could see them doing. They’d own the consumables at that point, and could probably take in some good money being able to tell advertisers exactly how many copies were delivered.
Fax spam is surprisingly still a thing, leave it to HP to bring it into the 21st century.
Maybe they’ll be kind enough to offer an ad-free subscription that doesn’t waste ink and paper for just $10 more per month.*
*Ink credits expire at the end of each month and cannot be rolled over. Use of ink exceeding the monthly plan will be billed at premium rates. Using the printer means you agree to the current week’s privacy policy, a copy of which will be printed on request at the customer’s cost. Privacy policy printing credits are not included in the monthly plan. All materials printed via the printer, and all derived works, remain the intellectual property of HP Inc. Users of the printer, and their descendants, are the property of HP Inc. Bypassing print limit restrictions will be punishable as terrorism. Other terms and conditions may apply. This deal is subject to change; pray we do not change it further.
Stop giving them ideas!
I will literally build my own printer before ever subscribing to this bullshit.
Go fuck yourself hp, you are not as important as you think you are.
Seriously. I print out return labels with my printer. That’s it. Why would I pay a monthly fee for something I barely use and can’t wait to do away with?
I want HP to shove it where the sun don’t shine :)
My 12 year old Canon needed replacing, guy at computer store warned me about HP and their internet monitoring of printer and ink subscription, so I stayed with Canon.
if any one wants good corporate news; Sonos was initially bricking devices when you upgraded a product and asking you to recycle them at an electronics depo. enough people emailed/complained because CEO has his email contact on the webpage for concerns. They walked it back and you can transfer ownership now to reduce e-waste
even if you were ok with renting a printer for some reason, I find it so creepy that HP needs to monitor all the stuff that gets sent to the printer.
Also I hope whoever decided that everything needs to be a subscription service is having a bad time.
Printers are a scam.
I got rid of mine a few years ago. I don’t need one.
You don’t need it until you do. Then it is a big todo to find one.
I recommend to everyone to just spend the extra $50 and by the BW Laser brother printer instead of the crap ink jet printer. I think they are around $100-150.
It will basically last you forever on the 10 pages you print a year.
First and foremost, #HP is not an option for anyone who boycotts #Israel. And even neglecting that, HP is still the least ethical of all ink suppliers.
from the article:
Prices range from $6.99 per month for a plan that includes an HP Envy printer (the current model is the 6020e) and 20 printed pages. The priciest plan includes an HP OfficeJet Pro rental and 700 printed pages for $35.99 per month.
So the 20 page deal probably reflects the consumption of most households that print. That means the cost ranges from $7—35¢ per page. You must print 20 pages to reach 35¢ pp. A library would likely charge ~5—10¢ pp flat. Print shops tend to be cheaper than libraries.
The 700 page deal amounts to $36—5¢ pp. So you have to print exactly 700 pages to get a good price. Everyone who does not print exactly 700 pages every month for a span of 2 years will get screwed.
One of the most perturbing aspects of the subscription plan is that it requires subscribers to keep their printers connected to the Internet.
Bingo. It’s not a “smart” printer, it’s a dependent printer.
from the article:
Subject to the terms of this Agreement, You hereby grant to HP a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free right to use, copy, store, transmit, modify, create derivative works of and display Your non-personal data for its business purposes.
Holy shit. I wonder if HP is feeding customers’ data to an #AI machine to exploit in some way. It doesn’t even seem to be limited to what people print. HP’s software package is probably not just a printer driver. But even if it is, a driver runs in the kernel space, so IIUC there’s no limit to what data it can mine.
But… But… All my data is personal data…
So if you print your book on this printer. A book that you have written and are about to send to a publisher. HP can take it and sell it. And you are paying them for the privilege.
That is a HARD NO from me.
