Printers

HP inc. is a world-renowned manufacturer of printers, laptops, and other electronic devices. Despite being a household name, this company holds an almost hostile relationship with its customers. During an interview with CNBC, the CEO Enrique Lores explained,

“Every time a customer buys a printer, it’s an investment for us. We are investing in that customer, and if that customer doesn’t print enough or doesn’t use our supplies, it’s a bad investment.” (CNBC Television, 2024).

Being seen as an investment and not a person is certainly not how I would want a company to view me. HP will do anything it can to extract more and more money out of its customers. Recent class action lawsuits have proven this. In 2019, HP settled with customers on a lawsuit regarding its Dynamic Security updates that blocked the usage of third-party ink cartridges (Spicer, 2019). Shortly after in 2022, HP launched another wave of updates once again restricting ink cartridges to only HP manufactured ones while, according to Ars Technical, also raising the price on their own ink cartridges (Harding, 2024). In the same time period in 2022 another class action against HP and Canon was brought forward due to both companies’ practice of limiting the use of all-in-one printer functions when there wasn’t any ink despite said functionalities not needing ink. Both scanning and faxing on numerous HP and Canon printers would be essentially disabled if there were no ink cartridges installed in the printer (Harding, 2023).

These obvious anti-consumer actions along with HP’s own statements on such matters have caused us to urge our customers not to buy or use HP printers. In my own experience, I have seen consistent hardware and software issues with HP printers that end up causing unnecessary headaches. Even the installation of HP printers and its software is unnecessarily difficult compared to the competition. For an alternative, Epson’s EcoTank series of printers are more economical and more reliable. Given that they use actual liquid ink and said ink can be replaced with cheaper third-party alternatives, it gives the end user more value in the long run. In conclusion, stay away from HP. They have consistently proven themselves to not be anti-consumer and anti-repair. HP will do anything they can to extract as much money as possible from you.

CNBC Television. (2024, January 18). HP CEO Enrique Lores on PC market trends: “Significant tailwinds” will continue to drive demand [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPRMyQSZGuY

Harding, S. (2023, August 15). Requiring ink to scan a document—yet another insult from the printer industry. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/the-printers-that-require-ink-to-scan-and-fax/

Harding, S. (2024, January 9). HP sued (again) for blocking third-party ink from printers, accused of monopoly. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/hp-sued-again-for-blocking-third-party-ink-from-printers-accused-of-monopoly/

Kunert, P. (2023, December 4). HP exec says quiet part out loud when it comes to locking in print customers. The Register. Retrieved April 2, 2024, from https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/04/hp_printer_lockin/

Spicer, C. (2019, December 4). HP Ink Cartridge Monopoly class action lawsuit settles for $1.5M – Top class actions. Top Class Actions. https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news/hp-ink-cartridge-monopoly-class-action-lawsuit-settles-1-5m/