- HP is turning off an incredibly customer-unfriendly ink subscription lock on certain printers.
- It won't unlock them for existing owners.
- If growth is your only goal, subscriptions, data mining, and tricky practices are inevitable.
Last year, HP found a way to trick buyers into locking their printers so they would never use third-party ink. The good news is that it puts an end to this nonsense, but not in a way that anyone will like.
Thankfully, HP is ditching its ridiculous HP Plus printer ink subscription plan and discontinuing these printer models. It will not unlock these printers for any existing owners. Meanwhile, TV companies are getting out of the game because they can't make money, and those that remain are essentially mining your personal data to sell. In short, these companies see us as the enemy instead of just making things we want to buy and selling them to us at a fair profit. what happened?
Will Mitchell, founder of StartupBros, said: "As someone who has founded multiple e-commerce companies and consulted for major brands, I have seen firsthand the damage caused by predatory tactics. Companies become greedy and Sacrificing customer trust for quick profits is a strategy that never lasts," he told Lifewire via email. "I helped a TV company refocus on quality and partnerships. As customers saw real value, their revenue grew. Customers accepted poor tactics out of necessity, but will flock to companies that offer transparency and mutual benefit brand."
HP Plus is an ink subscription service. Agree to six months of "free" ink, and then the printer will refuse to accept any ink other than HP's own. You can enjoy a $65 printer without "free" ink and avoid this lock-in, but once you agree, that's it. Irreversible firmware updates have been applied and you remain responsible to HP for the remainder of the printer's life.
Seeing this, you can't possibly think that HP is doing this for the benefit of its customers. This is simply a direct money grab. Judging from HP's long history of trying to prevent people from buying affordable printer refills, this shows that this company is as hostile to customers as it gets.
Well, maybe not. Another contender for the most abusive award is the television manufacturer. The television industry pushed prices so low that it could no longer make enough profit from selling televisions. In 2021, Vizio reported that its ads, subscriptions and data collection earned it more than twice as much profit as TV sales.
“Printer and TV companies are struggling in a competitive market, so they are turning to models like ink/toner subscriptions and data mining to stay afloat,” contract manufacturer and Altraco owner Albert Brenner ) told Lifewire via email. “These tactics exploit customer complacency and are effective in the short term, but in the long term they severely damage brand trust.”
What about Telly? The company last year started giving away dual-screen TVs that use the lower screen to play unskippable ads. Obviously, the idea of buying a TV for free is tempting, but this arrangement is far from free and once again pits sellers and buyers against each other.
The reason for all this is quite transparent - as opposed to the business practices of the companies involved. It's all about growth. In the US, public companies are thought to have a responsibility - to deliver "shareholder value" (btw, I'm sorry for the amount of scaremongering in this story), which means growth at all costs. While a company may dabble in environmental issues or actually please customers, when growth slows, these are secondary priorities at best.
When you grow market share by constantly lowering prices, and you can no longer make your products cheaper by reducing factory worker wages or lowering the quality of your products, you have to start looking elsewhere. But perhaps the most surprising part of it all is that we swallowed it. We let Google and Facebook collect our data in exchange for “free” emails, searches, and a stream of negative body photos. We've had printer companies block us from using printers we purchased for just a few dollars less than the purchase price.
"Subscriptions are a popular business model for many large, infrequent purchases. There was a time when you could simply buy a car. Today, most cars, especially premium ones, come with a variety of subscriptions Service. Do you want navigation? $25/month The car comes with navigation installed, but to use it you have to pay monthly for the options that come with the car, but now they only exist with payment," Supply Chain Expert via email. Tell Lifewire
But there are other options. For example, some companies position themselves as more ethical. "The future favors ethical companies that benefit customers and shareholders. Once customers realize they are being taken advantage of, the razor blade model fails," Mitchell said.
But in the long term, ethics and sustainability need to be something shareholders demand, which is hardly reassuring considering the reason for buying shares is profit.
