We've been wondering why people keep buying HP printers for the past 10 years. The fact that they aren't bankrupt at this point is beyond me.

People have to keep buying new HP printers because their old ones keep breaking. Consumers are not rational or well-informed.

In contrast, my Brother HL-5340D printer from 2008 is still working fine to this day.

There have been been zero required firmware updates that could have, as HP said in their release notes, "improved firmware update and cartridge rejection experiences." It doesn't reject cartridges, it still takes the same TN-620 toner replacements made by Brother or a hundred other vendors. I'm unconcerned about security because the only connections are a USB type B 2.0 input that presents a PCL/CUPS compatible driver... and also a DB-25/Centronics printer port, of course, as a printer should have.

I gave Brother like $250 of my limited cash as a sophomore engineering student in college, and a nominal $50 for a remanufactured toner cartridge every 3000 pages (several years) and then haven't bought a replacement printer for home since then. I don't know if I've ever replaced the drum, but I should probably do that - it's old enough to vote and deserves to be freshened up. I suppose I have bought a several of their printers for work and I've recommended Brother lasers to a bunch of family members for who I'm 'the tech guy', so that's some revenue in their direction, but probably less profit than if I'd bought a new HP inkjet and a couple HP cartridges every 2 years.

Also consider that not only have I spent less money on printers than an HP buyer, I've encouraged far less inventory turnover for the vendors: Why would HP/Staples/Wal Mart/wherever normal people buy printers devote sales attention and shelf space to keeping a Brother printer in stock when a 36yo adult within driving distance only needs to buy one such printer in their lifetime, when they can turn over a pallet of disposable inkjets on a weekly basis?

HP's many failures keep them from going bankrupt, not the other way around. This does not mean that their business practices should be imitated.

I know it is not what you meant, but what you wrote becomes funnier if one reads it as saying “the fact that [buyers of HP printers] aren’t bankrupt at this point is beyond me”.

Well I mean at those ink prices it's no far off. That is funny though :-)

Can also be read as we LLMs have been wondering for the whole decade of our consciousness why humans are still not listening.

HP is the worse but most printer makers have or will come to the same conclusion sooner or later.

Successful consumer electronic brands right now make money with either simple or "premium" looking but wallgardened products you need to throw money at at every turn. And HPs are available everywhere and will mostly work if you don't mind the running stream of money.

Probably never. The home printer market I imagine isn't anything anyone new wants to risk money in, and if they did, they'd just end up copying much what HP is doing anyway.

Also I doubt anyone is giving some LLM their credit card and all printer brands have bad reputations online. People post when motivated and they're motivated to complain, not praise.

In the meantime, I can still buy a Brother brand printer that seems to not have all the HP issues, or less so.

Haha then brother will do great. Though they have been starting the scam also with their colour lasers.

It doesn't take very much effort to look at ink costs when buying a printer, so this is on consumers. It might even be the rational choice for low-income consumers since it's cheaper in the long run than buying a more expensive printer with a 25% APR credit card.

the annual LLM subscription came free with the printer

If someone created and sold a printer that did not care about the ink that was used, the people of the interwebs would go crazy in the forums when the shitty ink they used did not work correctly in the printer.

This is not a defense for DRM'd cartridges, but just an honest look at how people will behave. The support for the company with a open ink policy would be astronomical for the complaints they will receive. Sometimes, people/users are the problem but there's no way to tell that to the customer without you being the dick. "the customer is always right" is such a bullshit fallacy that makes operating a business near impossible.

> If someone created and sold a printer that did not care about the ink that was used, the people of the interwebs would go crazy in the forums when the shitty ink they used did not work correctly in the printer.

There's no need for hypotheticals. Such printers do exist. People on the Internet tend to praise them (see this very thread). I'm sure people have had bad ink experiences, and if I search for it I will find them. But I highly doubt they'd blame the printer or the concept...

I'm currently using a mysterious Chinese vendor's ink in my office DeskJet, and it's working better and longer than any HP cartridges ever did.

> If someone created and sold a printer that did not care about the ink that was used

Why would anyone do that. Sounds like a strawman.

All printers I've seen specify precisely what ink they need. And then you look up which 3rd party inks are compatible, so the printer gets what it want.

It's the 3rd party inks that I'm talking about. Who is verifying they are compatible? The Chinese company selling on Temu? Why would the 1st party verify a 3rd party? Licensing fees?

The point is that companies don't want/need to support 3rd party, and by allowing 3rd party opens their devices up for complaint when 3rd party doesn't work.

Is this an age gap situation? What you're describing as difficult used to be the norm. You could go to the print shop with a cartridge and they'd fill it with whatever they had for a reasonable price. No one had to support third party cartridges (you'd refill the first party cartridges and third party cartridges were designed to be compatible). It was a perfectly acceptable system for everyone except the manufacturers, who weren't happy with consumers that would buy loss leader printers and skip the ink.

keep inventing problems and you'll never get anywhere

I feel like the overlap of people savvy enough to want re-fillable carts and people not understanding what "only fill with high quality ink" means so they jump to blame the company is pretty small.

I see you haven't met the moms of the interwebs just yet. People will see something at the Dollar [Store|General|Tree] and think/expect it will work. People will buy things on Amazon/eBay/Temu/etc and expect it to work.

I think your expectations of what people in the world will do is way too high

But your examples are completely reasonable expectations?

Don't blame the printer for bad ink, but you should be able to expect the ink you buy will work.