HP printers come in an "e" model, which requires an Instant Ink subscription (but is cheaper - effectively subsidized by the subscription), and a non-"e" model that is unlocked (but costs more). Just don't buy the "e" models if you're shopping elsewhere.
In general, the reason Costco sells electronics with different model numbers is so that you can't price match them to/from other retailers. Sometimes a few minor features get removed as well to lower the overall cost.
If Costco would ban all electronics products that phone home, gratuitously depend on servers (which is now most IoT products), and/or spy on the user... I might have to become a lifetime citizen of Costco.
Out of curiosity, do you happen to know the differences for the Costco Sony TVs?
It may have changed recently but last I knew Sony TVs had few if any ties to Sony services, come loaded with basically unchanged Google TV, and are perfectly happy to be used as fully offline "dumb" TVs. If that holds true for current Sony TVs it's hard to imagine what would be different in Costco versions.
This kind of bullshit has gone on for years, notably in the mattress industry. Mattress companies are famous for simply slapping different model numbers on the same mattresses sold to each retailer, to undermine price guarantees.
No doubt HP, Sony, and who knows who else pulls the same shit with merchandise sold to Costco.
I wonder if it's possible to cross-flash firmware to unlock other models. I highly doubt HP is spending the money to create an entire new different set of models just for Costco.
I thought all major shops got differently numbered models from major suppliers. This allows the shop to say it is a unique model only available from them.
But the sticker has an icon in the lower left corner that suggests it should be pulled off?
Here is a reply from the Mastodon thread that seems more plausible:
> @steeph @netspooky They're not hiding it, they're getting you to set up the printer over wifi, and only use the USB port after that. It seems if you use the USB port straight away it'll only print up to 20 pages then stop. They do this to get you to opt into hp+ and lock the printer in to use official toner. That's why the printer is so cheap
I have a similar printer and I think it was just for setup, I remember it saying you can use USB after the initial setup but you need to keep it connected to WiFi as well or something
I agree. I get the impression that the intended message is "USB not necessary" rather than "unavailable". I can imagine that many users seeing the USB port would think that it is required (since it was on older printers), not understanding that WiFi-only is an option.
Mugging pensioners is a line of work that people get into when they're too ethical for the printer industry.
HP is one of the worst offenders, but the others aren't much better.
I bought a dirt cheap (~$100 AUD) Fuji Xerox CP105b colour laser printer about 10 years ago and it still works fine. No crapware in the drivers, no cartridge lockouts, no bullshit. Super crisp print jobs. I fear that when it breaks, I won't find another deal like that.
In Germany we have "Mogelpackung des Jahres" ("Cheat packaging of the year") by the consumer center/protection organisation for example that points out companies that abuse shrinkflation
Shame is a big driver of achieving cultural/behavioral alignment, the same has to be done with corporations if they misbehave.
While legal entities do not care, their employees and customers can be capable of that. Make every such infraction public so the companies' reputation, brand and profits correspond to the morality of its actions. Systemic failures like these need systemic fixes.
Maybe it would be a good idea to force companies to publicize product return rates, so managerial brainfarts like these get rewarded accordingly.
Same for a Brother black-and-white laser. Not a Brother ink printer. Not a Brother color laser printer. A Brother black-and-white laser.
Now maybe things have changed. But I bought my Brother MFC-8890DW back in April of 2011. It is still going strong. In that time period I have replaced the toner once. But I have only printed 3,768 pages in that time. So 314 pages per year.
It is the best type of printer for my use case which is infrequent printing. Ink type printers aren't the best options if you might have 90+ days between printing jobs. I also really like having the scanning and photo copying features that mine has. And the Ethernet connection makes it so anyone in the house can easily print.
Brother printers have went this way too. Mine incessantly complains about low toner even when I use brand new ones because they aren't brother branded.
Is anyone familiar with a solid open source printer hardware project?
Given all of the issues with printers over the years (driver compatibility, ink cartridge drm, things like the above post), I’m curious if there is a reason open source printer hardware is not more common.
My assumption would be the complexity of the print mechanism / tolerances / balancing.
That article reads painfully like a "how can we screw over our customers" discussion was exposed.
On a more positive note, it used to be somewhat common for cheap no-name Android phones, mainly based on Mediatek SoCs, to boot from an internal removable microSD card, along with the "official" external removable one next to the then-standard removable battery and dual SIM slots. They disappeared rather quickly once eMMC became the norm, likely in a next revision of a reference design.
I bought a NAS a fee years back. Was a fully functional computer complete with 4x usb, hdmi, and Ethernet. Only the ethernet was exposed until you cut the case away.
Cut the case, installed truenas, never looked back.
HP sucks, but that sticker has instructions on where to start to peal it away.
They're obviously trying to get the whole family to wirelessly print with all their devices via WiFi to use up ink. And not just connected to dad's boring household accounting desktop.
Yes, and get the printer on the network where it can download new DRM behaviors to screw the users out of more ink. So far they retroactively added banning 3rd party ink, disabling ink once it gets too old, and of course not letting you print black if one of the other colors is out.
I still wish printers continued to have parallel ports and something relatively standard and simple like ASCII+ESC/P2 compatibility. Instead we got a morass of complexity with proprietary protocols over USB and extremely user-hostile printer firmware.
I bought one of these because it was like $30 and needed it to print off some stuff with color. I had immediately taken the sticker off even realizing until after the fact that they try and limit it to WiFi only. It worked immediately plugging it in to USB on my Linux laptop, so yea.. I guess its only there for people that don't know better?
I think this is the key part... I haven't installed a printer driver from the manufacturer in years. Using CUPS through my Mac or Linux machines "just works". The crazy bloatware drivers are almost always associated with Windows, so if you're using Linux or a Mac, there isn't much of a risk here, is there? Linux even more so...
Why do people even buy HP printers? I gave up on them a decade ago when I had to download some 300MB “driver” on a clients PC, which of course installed a crapload of other stuff on it.
Back in the day, my primary school paid the printer company (I think it was Epson at the time) $400 (which was a lot of money back then) to "upgrade" the school's (we only had 2 printers for the whole school) printers from black and white to colour. Lo and behold, he opened it up and flipped a single dip switch.
Think of the children! There are hordes of bad men out there printing illegal material, sharing it hand to hand, and doing unimaginable things with it. It must be stopped!
"To cook the frog one need to slowly increase the temperature so the frog will not feel stress but relaxation, and when the temperature exceeds some point, the frog will not have strength to jump out"
As apparently this cruel recipe probably even does not work in case of this amphibian, it is really great metaphor and it really works in case of people. People can get accustomed to every inconvenience one can imagine, as long as it is accompanied by additional "convenience" attached to it. No cash - you don't need to take money with you. No cable printing - you can print without cables. Ink subscription - you can always have any amount of ink you want (as long as it does not exceed certain amount of pages)
HP are scum but I have to say the most reliable laser I've had is an HP LaserJet Pro M148 and it wasn't expensive. No jams, everything works, no crapware. Done 7000 sheets on it. The only thing you have to do is ignore the low toner warning as it'll do a few hundred pages after that kicks off.
This is a vast contrast to the cheap inkjet I got from them before which was drop kicked all the way to the trash after it died replacing the first cartridge.
I had a Brother laser before them and the thing used to jam all the time and ate drums.
Their mistake was to make the sticker distinguishable from the background plastic. Inquisitive people will always remove the sticker to reveal the tempting secrets behind.
I just remove stickers because I hate all manner of visual distractions. If I could find a way to remove etched in / painted on logos from from computer hardware I'd do that too.
Got a (pretty good) apron from William Sonoma but it had the logo sewed on with a huge patch, had to painstakingly unstitch it to get a pretty apron without any branding emblazoned across the front.
My cable modem has a sticker that looks very much like the surrounding plastic. I’d never have noticed if reviews hadn’t pointed it out. Apparently hides three extra ethernet ports for situations with multiple static IPs or with link aggregation. (Things that aren’t needed for the typical residential modem user.)
Disregarding the anti-consumer part of this, HP instant ink is a pretty good deal. The 910 3-pack on Best Buy is $36 for me, and claims a 315 page yield. Instant ink, on the other hand, offers 100 pages for $6/month, making it about $20 to achieve the same yield of pages.
And with the rise of digital records, most people could probably live on the $1/month plan where you get 10 pages and can rollover up to 30 pages with every extra 10 pages costing $1 when you need it. It'd take 3 years of not printing a total of 315 pages to lose money on Instant Ink compared to the price of the new cartridge (I'm on the grandfathered $1 15 pages/month plan).
[+] [-] LeoPanthera|2 years ago|reply
That's why the Costco HP printers are often models exclusive to Costco.
(They require a similar thing of Sony televisions, which is why Sony TVs have slightly different model numbers at Costco.)
[+] [-] wpietri|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjohns|2 years ago|reply
HP printers come in an "e" model, which requires an Instant Ink subscription (but is cheaper - effectively subsidized by the subscription), and a non-"e" model that is unlocked (but costs more). Just don't buy the "e" models if you're shopping elsewhere.
In general, the reason Costco sells electronics with different model numbers is so that you can't price match them to/from other retailers. Sometimes a few minor features get removed as well to lower the overall cost.
[+] [-] neilv|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m463|2 years ago|reply
you can do:
- start setup - continue without wifi - manual start
then you can manually press all the buttons (speed, incline, etc)
but no treadmill programs.
[+] [-] jwells89|2 years ago|reply
It may have changed recently but last I knew Sony TVs had few if any ties to Sony services, come loaded with basically unchanged Google TV, and are perfectly happy to be used as fully offline "dumb" TVs. If that holds true for current Sony TVs it's hard to imagine what would be different in Costco versions.
[+] [-] ShadowBanThis01|2 years ago|reply
This kind of bullshit has gone on for years, notably in the mattress industry. Mattress companies are famous for simply slapping different model numbers on the same mattresses sold to each retailer, to undermine price guarantees.
No doubt HP, Sony, and who knows who else pulls the same shit with merchandise sold to Costco.
[+] [-] userbinator|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benj111|2 years ago|reply
I'm actually quite impressed with this. It's a shame all stores don't do this.
It's also a shame I don't have a Costco reasonably near me.
[+] [-] pasc1878|2 years ago|reply
Well at least in the UK
[+] [-] __jonas|2 years ago|reply
Here is a reply from the Mastodon thread that seems more plausible:
> @steeph @netspooky They're not hiding it, they're getting you to set up the printer over wifi, and only use the USB port after that. It seems if you use the USB port straight away it'll only print up to 20 pages then stop. They do this to get you to opt into hp+ and lock the printer in to use official toner. That's why the printer is so cheap
[+] [-] userbinator|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sophira|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greazy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] circuit10|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] larschdk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] canadianfella|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] SturgeonsLaw|2 years ago|reply
HP is one of the worst offenders, but the others aren't much better.
I bought a dirt cheap (~$100 AUD) Fuji Xerox CP105b colour laser printer about 10 years ago and it still works fine. No crapware in the drivers, no cartridge lockouts, no bullshit. Super crisp print jobs. I fear that when it breaks, I won't find another deal like that.
[+] [-] 7373737373|2 years ago|reply
In Germany we have "Mogelpackung des Jahres" ("Cheat packaging of the year") by the consumer center/protection organisation for example that points out companies that abuse shrinkflation
https://www.vzhh.de/themen/mogelpackungen/mogelpackung-des-j...
Shame is a big driver of achieving cultural/behavioral alignment, the same has to be done with corporations if they misbehave.
While legal entities do not care, their employees and customers can be capable of that. Make every such infraction public so the companies' reputation, brand and profits correspond to the morality of its actions. Systemic failures like these need systemic fixes.
Maybe it would be a good idea to force companies to publicize product return rates, so managerial brainfarts like these get rewarded accordingly.
[+] [-] sliken|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graton|2 years ago|reply
Now maybe things have changed. But I bought my Brother MFC-8890DW back in April of 2011. It is still going strong. In that time period I have replaced the toner once. But I have only printed 3,768 pages in that time. So 314 pages per year.
It is the best type of printer for my use case which is infrequent printing. Ink type printers aren't the best options if you might have 90+ days between printing jobs. I also really like having the scanning and photo copying features that mine has. And the Ethernet connection makes it so anyone in the house can easily print.
[+] [-] xeromal|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] themindfield|2 years ago|reply
Given all of the issues with printers over the years (driver compatibility, ink cartridge drm, things like the above post), I’m curious if there is a reason open source printer hardware is not more common.
My assumption would be the complexity of the print mechanism / tolerances / balancing.
[+] [-] tenebrisalietum|2 years ago|reply
https://www.engadget.com/2010-11-17-windows-phone-7s-microsd....
A removeable SD card you're ... not supposed to remove.
[+] [-] userbinator|2 years ago|reply
On a more positive note, it used to be somewhat common for cheap no-name Android phones, mainly based on Mediatek SoCs, to boot from an internal removable microSD card, along with the "official" external removable one next to the then-standard removable battery and dual SIM slots. They disappeared rather quickly once eMMC became the norm, likely in a next revision of a reference design.
[+] [-] dismalpedigree|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hobotime|2 years ago|reply
They're obviously trying to get the whole family to wirelessly print with all their devices via WiFi to use up ink. And not just connected to dad's boring household accounting desktop.
[+] [-] sliken|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] userbinator|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] biugbkifcjk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbreese|2 years ago|reply
I think this is the key part... I haven't installed a printer driver from the manufacturer in years. Using CUPS through my Mac or Linux machines "just works". The crazy bloatware drivers are almost always associated with Windows, so if you're using Linux or a Mac, there isn't much of a risk here, is there? Linux even more so...
[+] [-] tacker2000|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alfiedotwtf|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zapkyeskrill|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p0w3n3d|2 years ago|reply
"To cook the frog one need to slowly increase the temperature so the frog will not feel stress but relaxation, and when the temperature exceeds some point, the frog will not have strength to jump out"
As apparently this cruel recipe probably even does not work in case of this amphibian, it is really great metaphor and it really works in case of people. People can get accustomed to every inconvenience one can imagine, as long as it is accompanied by additional "convenience" attached to it. No cash - you don't need to take money with you. No cable printing - you can print without cables. Ink subscription - you can always have any amount of ink you want (as long as it does not exceed certain amount of pages)
[+] [-] charonn0|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phyzome|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deepsun|2 years ago|reply
Or don.
[+] [-] worewood|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baz00|2 years ago|reply
This is a vast contrast to the cheap inkjet I got from them before which was drop kicked all the way to the trash after it died replacing the first cartridge.
I had a Brother laser before them and the thing used to jam all the time and ate drums.
[+] [-] lapetitejort|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] missblit|2 years ago|reply
Got a (pretty good) apron from William Sonoma but it had the logo sewed on with a huge patch, had to painstakingly unstitch it to get a pretty apron without any branding emblazoned across the front.
[+] [-] catchnear4321|2 years ago|reply
pretty easy to peel, too, given how much larger the sticker is from the little port extrusion thing.
for that matter, it isn’t even centered.
assuming it would even remain stuck given how little it would be sticking to.
almost like someone placed a sticker over a usb port.
would someone do that?
[+] [-] Marsymars|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] judge2020|2 years ago|reply
And with the rise of digital records, most people could probably live on the $1/month plan where you get 10 pages and can rollover up to 30 pages with every extra 10 pages costing $1 when you need it. It'd take 3 years of not printing a total of 315 pages to lose money on Instant Ink compared to the price of the new cartridge (I'm on the grandfathered $1 15 pages/month plan).
[+] [-] isykt|2 years ago|reply
It's the same reason why I'm subscribed to exactly one digital service.
[+] [-] kuschku|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quickthrower2|2 years ago|reply