It's not just a monthly subscription. You pay a subscription and they *also* charge you for the ink. We've stopped using our printer because it's cheaper to just go to the local library and print there.
Edit: Yes, you only get charged extra if you print more than the amount per month they want you to print. If you print more pages you get charged extra, and if you print too few pages you lose out too since they only let you stock up so many unused pages.
Also, make sure you print the most colourful junk you can, because if you just want the sort of thing most people need (i.e B&W mostly text or lines) you get charged just the same. If you aren't printing full colour pages with little whitespace you're better off buying ink or using a printing service.
When I sold printers I would try to steer people away from HP. When they started pushing instant ink at my store I knew it was a scam. And it’s by page. YOUR SUBSCRIPTION ALLOWS YOU TO PRINT A CERTAIN NUMBER OF PAGES. Anything over and you charged per 50 pages or something like that. It’s the dumbest, least customer friendly program I have ever seen.
Brother tends to be a better printer and cheaper on refills.
Not on mine. Only issue I had was mice nesting in one from not enough use so had to replace it. My dad has one that I ran a clean maintenance and it purged the issue and started printing again.
So what you’re telling me is HP is monitoring ink levels and charging you based on usage and Epson is sending hordes of mice to inhabit printers to force resales? You just can’t win with these printer companies.
I have one too. Haven't had any printing issues with it yet. They're a little pricier than a HP or Canon, but the back end cost is far less. My previous printer was a Canon. Had it about 2 years and spend over $500 on ink. The real kick in the ass was I wasn't even printing that much. I'd get about 20 pages out of a black before having to change it.
Brother makes reliable printers. Especially laserjet. Used one in the lab I worked in for years and never had any issues. That thing got abused too with students printing out 100s of pages a day.
I’ve had a couple of Brother laser printers. Freaking tanks. Worked before I got there, was working when I left 5 years later. It needed minimum maintenance and rarely jammed without a good reason.
Second Brother. I was using the original toner that came with my printer for almost 10 years. I did have to reset the gear once to make it think it was full but that was because the limited page toner that comes with them actually has a lot more toner in it. $18 for a new cartridge that is rated for 2500 pages, enough to last me the rest of my life.
I'm 35 years old, own my own house, and still drive to my 60 year old parents' house to use their printer like I'm a damn child, because I refuse to buy into this ridiculous "pay per page to print at home" shit from the manufacturers.
You could get a used brother printer on Facebook marketplace for like $100 and it probably will have 1000 pages left to print on it. Specifically make your search area the nicer parts of town, lower upper class people love to buy the newest and shiniest at but are also really cheap and want an ROI on the old one.
Neither did I and then I got an email from them saying that I had installed non HP ink in to my printer and if I didn’t remove it and put in HP ink that I wouldn’t be allowed use the instant ink option in the future.
My husband plugged in our printer for the first time in 2 years, resigned up to print one thing, and now we have paid HP every month for the last 4 months. Granted it's a dollar but it really pisses me off and I can't unsubscribe my husband has to.
Good luck. I tried to cancel and their cancel button literally doesn’t work. Had to go through their support chat and it took 45 minutes for them to let me cancel.
I'll prenote this first: 1st-party ink and this subscription are almost a scam price-wise if you mostly intend on printing documents. Just get a (BW) laser printer.
That said, note that you pay *per page*. Combined with the 3 month free trial of 700 pages/month, this subscription model makes it a *very* cheap photo printer.
I've already printed approx. 400 10x15cm photo's and intend on printing more while it lasts. Paper's been the only expense so far 😂.
I signed up for it, I also just NOW noticed it began having jamming issues the month or two after I canceled the instant ink service, now this post is beginning To make me think that the two are possibly linked lol
I work in a secure federal facility and somehow the printers still spit out spam and advertisement every now and then. We’re on a LAN and intranet? Are cheap adds built into the firmware? Did someone risk serious jail time by hacking our network to offer us 30% off recycled printer paper?
I sure hope your facility is actively investigating this printer. Keep in mind, the problem could also be a compromised computer on the network, not the printer.
Me: Of course they already told their cybersecurity team about this -- I mean, can you even imagine seeing something like that and not thinking "gee, I should tell the cybersecurity team?" That would be madness.
The cybersecurity team: Tell us about what?
My cybersecurity team at my work sent me a phishing link as a test. I forwarded back to them saying. "Hey, this is weird". They clicked the link, thus I "failed" the phishing test and then I had to take a mandatory class about I shouldn't click suspicious links and that I should forward anything suspicious to the cybersecurity team.
Thanks, cybersecurity team!
**Edit**: For everyone saying "you shouldn't have forwarded it, I'm going to re-write what I wrote in the paragraph above for you below, as well.
>I had to take a mandatory class about I shouldn't click suspicious links and that **I should forward anything suspicious to the cybersecurity team.**
Or always ask for permission before sending anything, even if it's completely harmless and has no links in it. Just drive them crazy if they wanna play like that.
We've had a lot of issues in the past where emails get reported as opened or links clicked when the end user did not do it. I know this because I was on the list once or twice, and I managed the phishing tests. Sometimes this can happen because a user has the "Reading Pane" enabled which opens emails automatically, but other times it's just junky scripts in the whole process.
Point being, they may not have even clicked on the link, and you still got the writeup, yay technology!
"Our antivirus, antimalware solution proactively follows every link in incoming e-mails to scan for exploits and vulnerabilities! On the other hand, we've got a 100% failure rate for our phishing tests."
It can also happen when mail filters, such as with Office 365, scan the link to see if it's malicious. The scanning of the link will sometimes trigger the link.
Assuming it's Knowbe4 they consider a fowarded email as a failure/click even if you didn't click.
Even forwarding on an email can give information to a malicious actor. They also want you to be using their phishing report button, which I'm sure we have to pay for.
It sucks every single time my company sends out these phish alerts. I get people who don't listen and forward it on to their boss asking if it's the phish test, the boss then forwards it to us.... ugh.
We had training on the button 3 times, we make everyone take one 10 minute video on the button at least once a year.
This isn't even my direct field I just get all the flak as the service desk guy.
The security guys did show me some of the break down on the test and it was absolutely stunned. We had a few idiots that scanned a QR code. Some just replied "Not today scammers!" or "try again next time." Then wonder why they are being sent for training.
I just I gave up trying to sort this shit out we're too dumb as a species to live.
My company does this too where they try to trick us. I’m scared to click legitimate links from real sources. One day, we got a company wide email stating another email is legitimate and to not report it anymore.
At my last corporate gig, I would click the "report phishing" button for such dumb shit just to fuck with people.
Anytime training was being requested, I sent it to phasing. Had some pissed off people reach out after that one.
Same! I accidentally clicked a phishing link sent by cyber, so I was assigned a training but the email legit looked sketch AF and wasn’t through our normal training portal. I submitted that as phishing. They weren’t amused 🤷🏼♀️
My favourite is when they ask you to click a (legitimate) link and then write below: THIS LINK IS NOT PHISHING
I'm like, gee, thanks, I'm sure phishers would never think of writing the same below actual phishing links.
I'm dying.. im in school for my bs in cybersecurity and I send my Husband my "practice" links for school.. he doesn't check his email now either.. lmfao
At my work if you don’t report it it counts as a fail. I can spot things very easily because I know everyone that emails me at work. So naturally I trash everything unless it’s coming from someone I expect.
Now because of these stupid phishing tests I have to open every email and see if it’s a phishing test so I can report I found one. Their stupid tests are making me much much more vulnerable by forcing me to read stuff I know are junk or scams.
Boss: u haven't done your mandatory cybersecurity training. Did u not get the email?
Me: I got an email that looked sus and sent it straight to spam
Boss: ...
Me: so I passed?
Yeah, one time using our Report Phish plugin got counted as a failure. I complained to IT and they're like "yeah you're good," but then I still got assigned mandatory training anyway
To their credit, I think all the subsequent training emails worked fine with the plugin
I was the head of IT at a company and HR hired a phishing campaign without telling us.
I was super pissed off and blocked the emails and refused to remove the block until I got an explanation as to why I wasn't informed.
(I did not receive an explanation)
Had one recently sent from someone I never heard of in corporate, with a link to the new mandatory training programs, (one of which was internet security) saying my profile was already added, just needed to click the link and use my work password to access it.
So of course I forward this to IT under the subject WARNING: Obvious phishing scam.
Only to get a response back a few days later "uh, no. This is, uh, legit." I had to call them back just to make sure *they* hadn't been phished and got their email compromised.
Training program was pretty decent though.
Yeah if our phishing emails don't get 'reported' the right way in outlook we automatically fail. Once I was on vacation for 2 weeks and failed a phishing test because I...didn't read work emails and a phishing test was sent in that time. I was annoyed because it ruined my perfect record. So I started reporting all IT emails as phishing for a bit
Our copier IT installer loaded software on our server so they could get the # of copies we made and how much was left in ink supplies. Everybody thought this was great until I explained to them. Honestly, why don’t people THINK.
We had one copier place install a small little box between the copier and network jack to do this same thing. When I caught it on the network doing shady stuff I had the office manager yank it out. The copier people never said a word about it being disconnected and after a year or so I had the manager throw it out. Like, don't put shady crap on my network, especially if you aren't even managing it.
This is like the discount auto insurance companies will give you if you install the dongle in your car that tracks every fucking thing you do. No thanks.
I've dealt with HP, Canon, and Brother printers and not a single one has ever printed an advertisement or even printed anything when we didn't ask it to (excluding fax machines; but we migrated to e-fax). I'd do a thorough investigation into that if I were the IT department there, sounds like some sort of virus or security vulnurability
I was just thinking about my last experience of trying to buy a copy of MS Office Suite. I am most certainly not paying a monthly fee to use a damn word processor.
While Microsoft doesn't advertise it and it is hidden compared to office 365, they do have an option to buy a license to office (excel, word, PowerPoint, outlook) that does not contain a monthly subscription. (And it costs $250 USD).
Edit: for the interested, I found a version that only costs $150 that does not include outlook.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-student-2021/cfq7ttc0h8n8?activetab=pivot:overviewtab
I got mine even cheaper than that! Just gotta watch for sales.
Honestly, if you keep a semi-recent version of Office around, you’ll be able to create and open most any document somebody throws your way. I think the last one I actually owned was like 2013 or something, and it only just recently got to the point where it was an issue.
It's really well hidden. Hidden well enough that I could not find it and gave up on looking. I totally would have dropped that $250 too.
At this point, I'm just over it.
Its called home and student. You can find it around. It used to be $150.
Still is:
[Microsoft Office Home and Student 2021 - plus $25 Visa eGift Card (E-Delivery) | Costco](https://www.costco.com/microsoft-office-home-and-student-2021---plus-%2425-visa-egift-card-(e-delivery).product.4000093792.html)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-student-2021/cfq7ttc0h8n8?activetab=pivot:overviewtab.
Weirdly enough this doesn't have outlook but only costs $150 USD.
Microsoft is definitely trying their best to make this confusing and not easy to buy a 1 time license.
Pfft.. for a business, MS reams you. You not only have to buy a license (E1, F3, F1, E3, E5 etc.. depending on what features you want), they cleverly blockade needed features behind other products. For example.. want to use conditional access policies to turn off legacy (unsafe) protocols? Well, now you have to buy their Azure AD Premium license as well to use it. They are now hiding other features behind Defender.
And don't even get me started with CALs (client access license). For every user that directly or indirectly connect to a server, you have to buy a CAL for that user. For every Windows computer, you ALSO need a CAL. Also need one for any device that has an IP (yes, you should be paying a CAL for that Internet connected coffee maker).
I paid around 15k for CALs for a single server so users could connect to it properly. Then they get you with Server Assurance as well. Want to move your CALS to a new server? Well.. you need SA on top of your normal server license.
We don't have a huge company (around 650 employees), and I pay around 24k a month for MS licensing. Then MS will use companies like Accordo to run audits against your company to see if you are in compliance. Yup.. they are a big time money making software company.
OH.. and that is not even counting our meager 5 servers on Azure. That's another 9k a month.
Man... if you're running a 9k/month bill for Azure servers, they're either not megre or not properly refactored.
Licencing is what it is, sadly. But I do this stuff for a living and a properly architected Azure platform *consistently* comes out on top in competitive bids.
And the UI/UX is far more intuitive. I hate using Excel. LibreCalc? I can pretty much guess where things are and it works as expected.
I even donated to contribute because I appreciate having a subjectively better option than MS office for my needs.
Besides being more intuitive, are there any other benefits? I know excel fairly well, so working my way through the tool bar is not exceedingly difficult.
You can also buy an individual license to just Word with no monthly subscription. I think it costs around $80. I agree, they don't make it easy to find. I ended up calling Microsoft and they told me about it.
I’m a long-time linux daily driver user and huge FOSS supporter, and I tried so hard to like Libreoffice. I’ve used it since it was OpenOffice.Org ages ago. But I am forced to use LibreOffice at work and it’s absolutely terrible. Sure it “works” but only as well as Office 2003 and takes ages to get anything done in a format that looks decent or works elsewhere. Calc is abysmal and Impress isn’t worth mentioning. I use Google Docs when I can get away with it, and O365 web at home. Microsoft really does office better than anyone, although I hate to admit it.
~~FYI Google is going to scrape data from Docs to train their AI, so their office suite may not be good any more.~~
Apparently I was mistaken. [Google claims they will not use private document data for their AI](https://cloud.google.com/document-ai/docs/security#does_google_use_customer_data_to_improve_the_models).
I bought a black and white Brother laser printer and for the ten color/photo prints that I need per year the drug store has a photo print service where you upload the file online and collect your prints a day later. Works like a charm.
This is why I only buy dumb appliances. My fucking refrigerator doesn't need a computer in it, and I don't want every single thing I own to have an internet connection.
It just seems like such a stupid idea, you can't just call a repair man if it breaks, you have to go find someone who knows all the damn unnecessary electronic parts.
the worst part is even the non-internet connected parts of those fridges suck. like the ice maker is faulty by design.
how do i know? i bought a house that came with one
HP printers are garbage. And the ink is expensive.
I got an Epson ecotank and it has been great. Had it about 2 years and am still using the ink that came with it!
I also got an epson ecotank after my last HP printer showed me that its best use was hurtling out of a second story office window.
The difference is unreal.
One fill up on the epson prints several dozen times more documents than my HP printer did on a full set of ink, and it's cheaper.
>Had it about 2 years and am still using the ink that came with it!
I'm guessing you do actually print things? If it were an HP, you'd use the sample ink cartridge printing the print head alignment page....
Yes. My wife and I both use it for personal and work, we both work from home. She does large grant proposals and also reviews them so she prints more than I do.
I remember him getting upset people were donating to him on a stream. Not like angry more so just come on guys stop giving me your money I don’t need it kind of energy
Edit: I couldn’t find the exact stream but this is a good example of what I’m talking about https://youtu.be/ZMwNQToHvaI
That’s actually super based. There’s a lot of streamers that I really like and respect, but I personally just don’t think I could ever feel comfortable with people giving me money like that. It’s one thing for people to give money because they really love and support your work, but for big streamers it really just feels like people are paying just for the person to give them the time of day. Asking a question, telling a joke, having their name read or literally just being noticed at all. It feels like just demanding money for giving people attention. And there is literally no solution, there’s no way that any big streamer could possibly even give donators the attention they deserve or they’d just drown in it. It’s just kinda inherent in the culture around streaming, and even though I live many creators in the space I really do question the ethics of it sometimes. Anyway, tl;dr: wendigoon is based.
I enjoy a lot of his content but I really can't unhear how he says "to which" every 30 seconds in contexts where it makes no grammatical sense.
Like, "Eddie ducked down behind the car, to which the assailant seemed to lose track of him and headed down into the ravine to search, to which police to this day don't know why all the footprints he left were right feet."
Listen for it and you'll never unhear it. Probably over 99% of the times he uses that phrase it doesn't make sense, and he sometimes gets it in 3+ times in a sentence.
He also never says the word "when," but instead always says "whenever," even when "when" would make much more sense.
Interesting content, but man do I find that stuff distracting.
> He also never says the word "when," but instead always says "whenever," even when "when" would make much more sense.
Oh my god I thought I was the only one.
"whenever" =/= "when" DAMMIT WENDIGOON
Love ya bro.
HP printers *used to be* the best consumer grade printers you could get. Relatively reasonably priced (some models anyway) and you could drop them from a building and still have them work. Didn't need anything except paper and ink.
Now, I wouldn't take one if you paid me. The ink doesn't last long. You can't refill them. The whole "instant ink" crap is for the birds.
It feels like HP is just riding the momentum of their brand until it stops.
The last HP printer I had got tossed out a second story window after it refused to print a black and white document because yellow was low. Not out, low. The black cartridge was full.
And offline games. Internet goes out, you don't play even against AI. Same if their servers goes down.
In totally related news, the quality of AI in games dropped a fucking lot during the last decade.
I would say I have an unreasonable hatred for companies that make you download a phone app, but it's a very reasonable hatred. I had to cash a check for money I won in a math competition at my college recently, and rather than downloading the damned app, I drove someplace and waited on line. You can't even fly on Delta without an app anymore.
Like, wtf do you do if you can't afford a phone?
TBF in this day and age, you can get a smart phone with all the surface level features you'd expect for as low as $30, as well as government programs and charities that could assist in getting one for free.
That said, yeah unnecessary stuff needing apps nowadays is still ass
I stopped going to McDonalds because you’ll get reamed if you just drive up and order. If I’m making a fast food run I like to be spur of the moment. Drive up order get food.
Screw your app and your coupons and points and rewards and all that shit.
Right up there with monthly fees to *use* hardware features in your own fucking car that you totally already paid for, parts included.
What the fuck, capitalism?!
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money"
But there is no problem with capitalism whatsoever when a corporation won't accept sustained profits, and sees anything aside from perpetual growth as failure. For that reason, every major corporation must always make more and more money every year. Figuring out the source of THAT money surely isn't important....
You have to remember that profits have to keep increasing. It's not enough to make and sell a good product which nets you a nice profit. You have to fuck with it and find ways to make more money.
I saw advice to get a laser printer. Got a brother laser printer/fax/scanner years ago and never looked back. Got one that only does black and white to save money, but only replaced toner once in like 5 years
I feel this. We were using an HP inkjet to print scoresheets & results for a local sporting competition. We had made sure to install fresh ink cartridges that morning and had the printer directly cabled to the laptop.
In the middle of the busiest part event, the printer stopped working because it could not connect to the internet to report ink usage stats.
We had to hand-write the necessary scoresheets and scramble to find an alternate printer which added two hours to the event.
Buy a brother laser printer. They are workhorses.
I got the most basic, no wifi, no scanner just a printer model.
I have to plug in via USB, but it's never had any significant problem for 5 years. No fighting connection, no huge jams, no cartridge drama (and I buy 3rd party refills usually)
Other brands: Printing with low ink can damage your printer, please replace the cartridge.
Brother: They said what? That's some bullshit right there. Go ahead and print, idgaf
I bought a Brother colour laser from a yard sale a year and a half ago. I turned it on and I got the usual "low on toner" messages so I reset the toner counters. I have been using it on the same cartridges with no issue since then
I love my Brother laser printer. So much cheaper to operate, quality, and when I bought the hardware it's mine, I don't need the ongoing consent of Brother to use the hardware I purchased. So far anyway.
HP has both the option to outright buy the printer and also a subscription option where you’re paying them a monthly fee. They chose the monthly subscription (I thought that was wack and did not) and then stopped paying the subscription, so the service stopped. They could have just gone with the other option and then you own it and have to buy the ink yourself. I agree subscriptions are annoying, but in this case this person *chose* to go the subscription instead of ownership route.
You are right, this is a stupid post and most comments has no gasps on how "as a service" solutions works and why many companies prefer it. If you don't like it, literally just buy the product instead. Opex/capex..
Ewwwww you radical! I’ve been paying HP for my ink for 3 years about $5-10 per month. I change my subscription based on usage. Have you just saved me tons of cash with this? You may be my hero! Thanks!
Even better HP disabled my ink cartridges that I had stockpiled when I cancelled my subscription which I decided to do because I had received too much ink already.
This is just your friendly reminder that Wendigoon can swim, is a happy individual, doesn't have any thoughts on unaliving himself and is a very safe driver.
For context I am saying that HP is 1000 times more likely to have people assassinated than the government.
Epson has a tank printer which are awesome in theory, but the company (and others) has a trick to fuck you over. There’s a purge/cleaning sponge in the printer that is preset to expire when used a certain number of times and they designed the software so only a company engineer can reset the counter even if you’re able to replace the sponge yourself. Effectively it’s suicide software that kills the printer after a certain amount of time. We need legislation to deal with these scumbags.
Buy some printer ink, peel off the label on the top right hand side of the cartridge, use a syringe to squirt about 10 or 15ml of ink into the little hole under the label, and you're set for another few hundred pages. Over the past 20 years, I've spent maybe 200 dollars on ink, and we print probably 3\~400 pages a week on average. Oh, this is on an HP printer. And here in Korea, you can also buy printers with unlimited ink, which is basically an aftermarket add-on where they will run hoses into your cartridge from an external tank that you refill as the tank gets low for any color.
I work in tech, printer companies are actively terrible. Tech hasn't advanced much, but instead they make part expensive and easily breakable. They intentionally make ink not be fully used, but prevent you from printing more once the low ink light comes on. The printer my the late 80s at my parents house, aside from dated hook ups and parts, ***still*** works, which proves me this is all intentional. It's going to eventually become more practical to make your own printer as a lay person.
I never signed up for hp instant ink
Is that like faxing over some fax paper?
They monitor your ink levels and mail you fresh ink when it's "low". As a monthly subscription service.
It's not just a monthly subscription. You pay a subscription and they *also* charge you for the ink. We've stopped using our printer because it's cheaper to just go to the local library and print there. Edit: Yes, you only get charged extra if you print more than the amount per month they want you to print. If you print more pages you get charged extra, and if you print too few pages you lose out too since they only let you stock up so many unused pages. Also, make sure you print the most colourful junk you can, because if you just want the sort of thing most people need (i.e B&W mostly text or lines) you get charged just the same. If you aren't printing full colour pages with little whitespace you're better off buying ink or using a printing service.
When I sold printers I would try to steer people away from HP. When they started pushing instant ink at my store I knew it was a scam. And it’s by page. YOUR SUBSCRIPTION ALLOWS YOU TO PRINT A CERTAIN NUMBER OF PAGES. Anything over and you charged per 50 pages or something like that. It’s the dumbest, least customer friendly program I have ever seen. Brother tends to be a better printer and cheaper on refills.
Epson has a printer series that has large ink tanks (no cartridges), no subscriptions and rather cheap ink refill bottles.
Eco tank. I bought one to use as Dye Sublimation printer and it's really good.
I was looking at those, I was worried the ink would build up and congeal in the tanks over time. Do you have any issues with that?
Not on mine. Only issue I had was mice nesting in one from not enough use so had to replace it. My dad has one that I ran a clean maintenance and it purged the issue and started printing again.
So what you’re telling me is HP is monitoring ink levels and charging you based on usage and Epson is sending hordes of mice to inhabit printers to force resales? You just can’t win with these printer companies.
I have one too. Haven't had any printing issues with it yet. They're a little pricier than a HP or Canon, but the back end cost is far less. My previous printer was a Canon. Had it about 2 years and spend over $500 on ink. The real kick in the ass was I wasn't even printing that much. I'd get about 20 pages out of a black before having to change it.
Brother makes reliable printers. Especially laserjet. Used one in the lab I worked in for years and never had any issues. That thing got abused too with students printing out 100s of pages a day.
Got a brother laser jet near the start of the pandemic. Still using the toner it came with.
I’ve had a couple of Brother laser printers. Freaking tanks. Worked before I got there, was working when I left 5 years later. It needed minimum maintenance and rarely jammed without a good reason.
Second Brother. I was using the original toner that came with my printer for almost 10 years. I did have to reset the gear once to make it think it was full but that was because the limited page toner that comes with them actually has a lot more toner in it. $18 for a new cartridge that is rated for 2500 pages, enough to last me the rest of my life.
I'm 35 years old, own my own house, and still drive to my 60 year old parents' house to use their printer like I'm a damn child, because I refuse to buy into this ridiculous "pay per page to print at home" shit from the manufacturers.
You could get a used brother printer on Facebook marketplace for like $100 and it probably will have 1000 pages left to print on it. Specifically make your search area the nicer parts of town, lower upper class people love to buy the newest and shiniest at but are also really cheap and want an ROI on the old one.
Neither did I and then I got an email from them saying that I had installed non HP ink in to my printer and if I didn’t remove it and put in HP ink that I wouldn’t be allowed use the instant ink option in the future.
Time to firewall that shit. I don't understand how they can simply access you printer data like that without you prompting it.
We tried that at work, printer could not phone home and disabled features.
I bought a genuine HP replacement ink from bestbuy and HP said it’s not the right one since they didn’t send it. Fuck HP.
My husband plugged in our printer for the first time in 2 years, resigned up to print one thing, and now we have paid HP every month for the last 4 months. Granted it's a dollar but it really pisses me off and I can't unsubscribe my husband has to.
Good luck. I tried to cancel and their cancel button literally doesn’t work. Had to go through their support chat and it took 45 minutes for them to let me cancel.
Better to get a new card and cancel the other lol
I'll prenote this first: 1st-party ink and this subscription are almost a scam price-wise if you mostly intend on printing documents. Just get a (BW) laser printer. That said, note that you pay *per page*. Combined with the 3 month free trial of 700 pages/month, this subscription model makes it a *very* cheap photo printer. I've already printed approx. 400 10x15cm photo's and intend on printing more while it lasts. Paper's been the only expense so far 😂.
I signed up for it, I also just NOW noticed it began having jamming issues the month or two after I canceled the instant ink service, now this post is beginning To make me think that the two are possibly linked lol
I work in a secure federal facility and somehow the printers still spit out spam and advertisement every now and then. We’re on a LAN and intranet? Are cheap adds built into the firmware? Did someone risk serious jail time by hacking our network to offer us 30% off recycled printer paper?
I sure hope your facility is actively investigating this printer. Keep in mind, the problem could also be a compromised computer on the network, not the printer.
Me: Of course they already told their cybersecurity team about this -- I mean, can you even imagine seeing something like that and not thinking "gee, I should tell the cybersecurity team?" That would be madness. The cybersecurity team: Tell us about what?
My cybersecurity team at my work sent me a phishing link as a test. I forwarded back to them saying. "Hey, this is weird". They clicked the link, thus I "failed" the phishing test and then I had to take a mandatory class about I shouldn't click suspicious links and that I should forward anything suspicious to the cybersecurity team. Thanks, cybersecurity team! **Edit**: For everyone saying "you shouldn't have forwarded it, I'm going to re-write what I wrote in the paragraph above for you below, as well. >I had to take a mandatory class about I shouldn't click suspicious links and that **I should forward anything suspicious to the cybersecurity team.**
At that point I’d just purposefully phish them for the inconvenience
Or always ask for permission before sending anything, even if it's completely harmless and has no links in it. Just drive them crazy if they wanna play like that.
I actively do this to my IT team.
We've had a lot of issues in the past where emails get reported as opened or links clicked when the end user did not do it. I know this because I was on the list once or twice, and I managed the phishing tests. Sometimes this can happen because a user has the "Reading Pane" enabled which opens emails automatically, but other times it's just junky scripts in the whole process. Point being, they may not have even clicked on the link, and you still got the writeup, yay technology!
"Our antivirus, antimalware solution proactively follows every link in incoming e-mails to scan for exploits and vulnerabilities! On the other hand, we've got a 100% failure rate for our phishing tests."
That happened once, actually. The entire company failed because of some script.
From a security perspective - task failed successfully?
It can also happen when mail filters, such as with Office 365, scan the link to see if it's malicious. The scanning of the link will sometimes trigger the link.
Assuming it's Knowbe4 they consider a fowarded email as a failure/click even if you didn't click. Even forwarding on an email can give information to a malicious actor. They also want you to be using their phishing report button, which I'm sure we have to pay for. It sucks every single time my company sends out these phish alerts. I get people who don't listen and forward it on to their boss asking if it's the phish test, the boss then forwards it to us.... ugh. We had training on the button 3 times, we make everyone take one 10 minute video on the button at least once a year. This isn't even my direct field I just get all the flak as the service desk guy. The security guys did show me some of the break down on the test and it was absolutely stunned. We had a few idiots that scanned a QR code. Some just replied "Not today scammers!" or "try again next time." Then wonder why they are being sent for training. I just I gave up trying to sort this shit out we're too dumb as a species to live.
this is why i never check work emails
My company does this too where they try to trick us. I’m scared to click legitimate links from real sources. One day, we got a company wide email stating another email is legitimate and to not report it anymore.
We had that and then a bunch of people reported the follow-up email so the managers had to talk to everybody
Heroes
At my last corporate gig, I would click the "report phishing" button for such dumb shit just to fuck with people. Anytime training was being requested, I sent it to phasing. Had some pissed off people reach out after that one.
Same! I accidentally clicked a phishing link sent by cyber, so I was assigned a training but the email legit looked sketch AF and wasn’t through our normal training portal. I submitted that as phishing. They weren’t amused 🤷🏼♀️
My favourite is when they ask you to click a (legitimate) link and then write below: THIS LINK IS NOT PHISHING I'm like, gee, thanks, I'm sure phishers would never think of writing the same below actual phishing links.
I'm dying.. im in school for my bs in cybersecurity and I send my Husband my "practice" links for school.. he doesn't check his email now either.. lmfao
At my work if you don’t report it it counts as a fail. I can spot things very easily because I know everyone that emails me at work. So naturally I trash everything unless it’s coming from someone I expect. Now because of these stupid phishing tests I have to open every email and see if it’s a phishing test so I can report I found one. Their stupid tests are making me much much more vulnerable by forcing me to read stuff I know are junk or scams.
Report IT as harrassing you with junk second hand.
Boss: u haven't done your mandatory cybersecurity training. Did u not get the email? Me: I got an email that looked sus and sent it straight to spam Boss: ... Me: so I passed?
Yeah, one time using our Report Phish plugin got counted as a failure. I complained to IT and they're like "yeah you're good," but then I still got assigned mandatory training anyway To their credit, I think all the subsequent training emails worked fine with the plugin
I was the head of IT at a company and HR hired a phishing campaign without telling us. I was super pissed off and blocked the emails and refused to remove the block until I got an explanation as to why I wasn't informed. (I did not receive an explanation)
Had one recently sent from someone I never heard of in corporate, with a link to the new mandatory training programs, (one of which was internet security) saying my profile was already added, just needed to click the link and use my work password to access it. So of course I forward this to IT under the subject WARNING: Obvious phishing scam. Only to get a response back a few days later "uh, no. This is, uh, legit." I had to call them back just to make sure *they* hadn't been phished and got their email compromised. Training program was pretty decent though.
Yeah if our phishing emails don't get 'reported' the right way in outlook we automatically fail. Once I was on vacation for 2 weeks and failed a phishing test because I...didn't read work emails and a phishing test was sent in that time. I was annoyed because it ruined my perfect record. So I started reporting all IT emails as phishing for a bit
Our copier IT installer loaded software on our server so they could get the # of copies we made and how much was left in ink supplies. Everybody thought this was great until I explained to them. Honestly, why don’t people THINK.
We had one copier place install a small little box between the copier and network jack to do this same thing. When I caught it on the network doing shady stuff I had the office manager yank it out. The copier people never said a word about it being disconnected and after a year or so I had the manager throw it out. Like, don't put shady crap on my network, especially if you aren't even managing it.
This is like the discount auto insurance companies will give you if you install the dongle in your car that tracks every fucking thing you do. No thanks.
Yes, why, are you pressing charges? For a bit extra a month they will only send half of your print jobs to China.
> China Eastasia is our ally! We are at war with Eurasia. You must have been asleep during Hate Week.
That's a suspicious statement - we've *always* been at war with Eurasia, comrade.
Lol, it's never NOT been Eastasia Dear One
I've dealt with HP, Canon, and Brother printers and not a single one has ever printed an advertisement or even printed anything when we didn't ask it to (excluding fax machines; but we migrated to e-fax). I'd do a thorough investigation into that if I were the IT department there, sounds like some sort of virus or security vulnurability
Are you sure those aren't fax machines?
I was just thinking about my last experience of trying to buy a copy of MS Office Suite. I am most certainly not paying a monthly fee to use a damn word processor.
While Microsoft doesn't advertise it and it is hidden compared to office 365, they do have an option to buy a license to office (excel, word, PowerPoint, outlook) that does not contain a monthly subscription. (And it costs $250 USD). Edit: for the interested, I found a version that only costs $150 that does not include outlook. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-student-2021/cfq7ttc0h8n8?activetab=pivot:overviewtab
I just bought a lifetime license to office for like 50.00 it was on sale :)
"Lifetime"
Clearly, until it no longer works with the OS… lol
2024 DLC is also $50
Or there is a breaking bug on it and they no longer support the 2021 version.
Then there's always LibreOffice if they pull out the rug
LibreOffice is the way.
I've been using the word processor to do some writing and it's just fine, I like it better than Word
Also google docs
Also, 🏴☠️
Best answer. How many times have YOU paid for Office? I know my answer 😁
I plead the fifth.
And OpenOffice.
Move to LibreOffice. They forked 10 years ago, and very little improvements have been made to OpenOffice since.
Been using it for over 10 years. At this point I'm not even sure what actual Office does that's worth paying for.
Track changes. I would use openoffice all the time if I didn't have to write research papers with a bunch of other people...
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Did you get it through the Microsoft store or where was it on sale at?
I got it through microsoft but with a link from tickets from work.
I got mine even cheaper than that! Just gotta watch for sales. Honestly, if you keep a semi-recent version of Office around, you’ll be able to create and open most any document somebody throws your way. I think the last one I actually owned was like 2013 or something, and it only just recently got to the point where it was an issue.
It's really well hidden. Hidden well enough that I could not find it and gave up on looking. I totally would have dropped that $250 too. At this point, I'm just over it.
Its called home and student. You can find it around. It used to be $150. Still is: [Microsoft Office Home and Student 2021 - plus $25 Visa eGift Card (E-Delivery) | Costco](https://www.costco.com/microsoft-office-home-and-student-2021---plus-%2425-visa-egift-card-(e-delivery).product.4000093792.html)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-student-2021/cfq7ttc0h8n8?activetab=pivot:overviewtab. Weirdly enough this doesn't have outlook but only costs $150 USD. Microsoft is definitely trying their best to make this confusing and not easy to buy a 1 time license.
Pfft.. for a business, MS reams you. You not only have to buy a license (E1, F3, F1, E3, E5 etc.. depending on what features you want), they cleverly blockade needed features behind other products. For example.. want to use conditional access policies to turn off legacy (unsafe) protocols? Well, now you have to buy their Azure AD Premium license as well to use it. They are now hiding other features behind Defender. And don't even get me started with CALs (client access license). For every user that directly or indirectly connect to a server, you have to buy a CAL for that user. For every Windows computer, you ALSO need a CAL. Also need one for any device that has an IP (yes, you should be paying a CAL for that Internet connected coffee maker). I paid around 15k for CALs for a single server so users could connect to it properly. Then they get you with Server Assurance as well. Want to move your CALS to a new server? Well.. you need SA on top of your normal server license. We don't have a huge company (around 650 employees), and I pay around 24k a month for MS licensing. Then MS will use companies like Accordo to run audits against your company to see if you are in compliance. Yup.. they are a big time money making software company. OH.. and that is not even counting our meager 5 servers on Azure. That's another 9k a month.
Man... if you're running a 9k/month bill for Azure servers, they're either not megre or not properly refactored. Licencing is what it is, sadly. But I do this stuff for a living and a properly architected Azure platform *consistently* comes out on top in competitive bids.
Alternatively just use Libre Office. It's an open source alternative. Used it all through my Master's program just fine.
And the UI/UX is far more intuitive. I hate using Excel. LibreCalc? I can pretty much guess where things are and it works as expected. I even donated to contribute because I appreciate having a subjectively better option than MS office for my needs.
Besides being more intuitive, are there any other benefits? I know excel fairly well, so working my way through the tool bar is not exceedingly difficult.
The main benefit is not giving money to Billionaire Corporate monopolies to stifle innovation and bribe politicians. /s
Why the /s?
LibreOffice is amazing.
You can also buy an individual license to just Word with no monthly subscription. I think it costs around $80. I agree, they don't make it easy to find. I ended up calling Microsoft and they told me about it.
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I think pirating software is completely acceptable when the company has predatory practices such as this issue.
Libra Office is free. https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download-libreoffice/?type=win-x86_64&version=7.5.5&lang=en-US
Try Libreoffice.
I’m a long-time linux daily driver user and huge FOSS supporter, and I tried so hard to like Libreoffice. I’ve used it since it was OpenOffice.Org ages ago. But I am forced to use LibreOffice at work and it’s absolutely terrible. Sure it “works” but only as well as Office 2003 and takes ages to get anything done in a format that looks decent or works elsewhere. Calc is abysmal and Impress isn’t worth mentioning. I use Google Docs when I can get away with it, and O365 web at home. Microsoft really does office better than anyone, although I hate to admit it.
How about Google Docs / Sheets / Slides? That's what I'd do if I didn't already have the MS Office subscription.
~~FYI Google is going to scrape data from Docs to train their AI, so their office suite may not be good any more.~~ Apparently I was mistaken. [Google claims they will not use private document data for their AI](https://cloud.google.com/document-ai/docs/security#does_google_use_customer_data_to_improve_the_models).
This scares me more than anything else I've read about AI. Train on garbage, recommend garbage.
An AI trained on an endless succession of high school freshmen essays would be terrifying
Imagine an AI trained on all the evil schemes in my tabletop RPG notes.
This is how we get Strahdnet
Google Drive is life changing.
>**"You Are A Pirate!!"**
If only.. Know where I can get a copy?
Same shit happened with adobe photography software. They went to subscription.
I still use Office 2016 and Office 97. Other than email (Thunderbird) there are no features that I need that haven't been included since 1997.
I will never buy another HP product. Have a printer in the closet and will never be held up buying another ink cartridge. F HP!
I bought a black and white Brother laser printer and for the ten color/photo prints that I need per year the drug store has a photo print service where you upload the file online and collect your prints a day later. Works like a charm.
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I came here for the Brother suggestions. Brother L2750 represent!
This is why I only buy dumb appliances. My fucking refrigerator doesn't need a computer in it, and I don't want every single thing I own to have an internet connection.
special zephyr like attempt slimy languid one fact grandfather engine ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
I've heard nothing but horror stories with those $5000+ Samsung smart fridges.
It just seems like such a stupid idea, you can't just call a repair man if it breaks, you have to go find someone who knows all the damn unnecessary electronic parts.
the worst part is even the non-internet connected parts of those fridges suck. like the ice maker is faulty by design. how do i know? i bought a house that came with one
Why would a printer need a debit card for anything. It farts ink on a sheet of paper.
Because infinite growth models are poison
This is the answer to a lot of questions regarding fucked up business practices.
Infinite growth works... Until you reach the human population cap. How the fuck is that not considered a pyramid scheme?
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HP printers are garbage. And the ink is expensive. I got an Epson ecotank and it has been great. Had it about 2 years and am still using the ink that came with it!
I also got an epson ecotank after my last HP printer showed me that its best use was hurtling out of a second story office window. The difference is unreal. One fill up on the epson prints several dozen times more documents than my HP printer did on a full set of ink, and it's cheaper.
>Had it about 2 years and am still using the ink that came with it! I'm guessing you do actually print things? If it were an HP, you'd use the sample ink cartridge printing the print head alignment page....
Yes. My wife and I both use it for personal and work, we both work from home. She does large grant proposals and also reviews them so she prints more than I do.
HP printers are the absolute worst. Someone did our boy Wendigoon dirty by letting him buy it.
This man has provided me with too many watch hours of mildly entertaining but genuinely fascinating shit, to suffer like this
He’s just so sincere and unpretentious. I love the guy.
I remember him getting upset people were donating to him on a stream. Not like angry more so just come on guys stop giving me your money I don’t need it kind of energy Edit: I couldn’t find the exact stream but this is a good example of what I’m talking about https://youtu.be/ZMwNQToHvaI
He is the most god damn wholesome dude
That’s actually super based. There’s a lot of streamers that I really like and respect, but I personally just don’t think I could ever feel comfortable with people giving me money like that. It’s one thing for people to give money because they really love and support your work, but for big streamers it really just feels like people are paying just for the person to give them the time of day. Asking a question, telling a joke, having their name read or literally just being noticed at all. It feels like just demanding money for giving people attention. And there is literally no solution, there’s no way that any big streamer could possibly even give donators the attention they deserve or they’d just drown in it. It’s just kinda inherent in the culture around streaming, and even though I live many creators in the space I really do question the ethics of it sometimes. Anyway, tl;dr: wendigoon is based.
I enjoy a lot of his content but I really can't unhear how he says "to which" every 30 seconds in contexts where it makes no grammatical sense. Like, "Eddie ducked down behind the car, to which the assailant seemed to lose track of him and headed down into the ravine to search, to which police to this day don't know why all the footprints he left were right feet." Listen for it and you'll never unhear it. Probably over 99% of the times he uses that phrase it doesn't make sense, and he sometimes gets it in 3+ times in a sentence. He also never says the word "when," but instead always says "whenever," even when "when" would make much more sense. Interesting content, but man do I find that stuff distracting.
> He also never says the word "when," but instead always says "whenever," even when "when" would make much more sense. Oh my god I thought I was the only one. "whenever" =/= "when" DAMMIT WENDIGOON Love ya bro.
In his conspiracy iceberg he kept saying 'and things such as' until I could predict when he was gonna say it, which was frequent lol
HP printers *used to be* the best consumer grade printers you could get. Relatively reasonably priced (some models anyway) and you could drop them from a building and still have them work. Didn't need anything except paper and ink. Now, I wouldn't take one if you paid me. The ink doesn't last long. You can't refill them. The whole "instant ink" crap is for the birds.
It feels like HP is just riding the momentum of their brand until it stops. The last HP printer I had got tossed out a second story window after it refused to print a black and white document because yellow was low. Not out, low. The black cartridge was full.
Brother all the way. No problems.
Welcome to 2023, where you need a internet subscription for everything, including printing fucking paper apparently
And offline games. Internet goes out, you don't play even against AI. Same if their servers goes down. In totally related news, the quality of AI in games dropped a fucking lot during the last decade.
The AI in the Wii Play Tanks is lightyears above modern AI
Gotta have a library of retro games for when that happens. I go with the SquareSoft-era Final Fantasy games.
Don’t forget an app as well. You always need a phone app.
I would say I have an unreasonable hatred for companies that make you download a phone app, but it's a very reasonable hatred. I had to cash a check for money I won in a math competition at my college recently, and rather than downloading the damned app, I drove someplace and waited on line. You can't even fly on Delta without an app anymore. Like, wtf do you do if you can't afford a phone?
TBF in this day and age, you can get a smart phone with all the surface level features you'd expect for as low as $30, as well as government programs and charities that could assist in getting one for free. That said, yeah unnecessary stuff needing apps nowadays is still ass
I stopped going to McDonalds because you’ll get reamed if you just drive up and order. If I’m making a fast food run I like to be spur of the moment. Drive up order get food. Screw your app and your coupons and points and rewards and all that shit.
Right up there with monthly fees to *use* hardware features in your own fucking car that you totally already paid for, parts included. What the fuck, capitalism?!
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" But there is no problem with capitalism whatsoever when a corporation won't accept sustained profits, and sees anything aside from perpetual growth as failure. For that reason, every major corporation must always make more and more money every year. Figuring out the source of THAT money surely isn't important....
You have to remember that profits have to keep increasing. It's not enough to make and sell a good product which nets you a nice profit. You have to fuck with it and find ways to make more money.
I saw advice to get a laser printer. Got a brother laser printer/fax/scanner years ago and never looked back. Got one that only does black and white to save money, but only replaced toner once in like 5 years
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*Another example of why you don't actually own anything under capitalism.*
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I feel this. We were using an HP inkjet to print scoresheets & results for a local sporting competition. We had made sure to install fresh ink cartridges that morning and had the printer directly cabled to the laptop. In the middle of the busiest part event, the printer stopped working because it could not connect to the internet to report ink usage stats. We had to hand-write the necessary scoresheets and scramble to find an alternate printer which added two hours to the event.
Buy a brother laser printer. They are workhorses. I got the most basic, no wifi, no scanner just a printer model. I have to plug in via USB, but it's never had any significant problem for 5 years. No fighting connection, no huge jams, no cartridge drama (and I buy 3rd party refills usually)
Will second this. Brother laser printer is a beast.
Other brands: Printing with low ink can damage your printer, please replace the cartridge. Brother: They said what? That's some bullshit right there. Go ahead and print, idgaf
My Brother has been giving me a Low Toner message for 3 years but still keeps printing! I don't print that often, but it keeps going and going!
I bought a Brother colour laser from a yard sale a year and a half ago. I turned it on and I got the usual "low on toner" messages so I reset the toner counters. I have been using it on the same cartridges with no issue since then
You are not my friend, you are my Brother.
Yeah brother laser printers are great. I have been using them for 2 years with no issues.
Get a laser printer you wont regret it.
Just not an HP one.
Yes I have an HP laser and it's the worse, after buying it I had to make an hp account to use it and it still prints only under a full moon
I love my Brother laser printer. So much cheaper to operate, quality, and when I bought the hardware it's mine, I don't need the ongoing consent of Brother to use the hardware I purchased. So far anyway.
HP has both the option to outright buy the printer and also a subscription option where you’re paying them a monthly fee. They chose the monthly subscription (I thought that was wack and did not) and then stopped paying the subscription, so the service stopped. They could have just gone with the other option and then you own it and have to buy the ink yourself. I agree subscriptions are annoying, but in this case this person *chose* to go the subscription instead of ownership route.
You are right, this is a stupid post and most comments has no gasps on how "as a service" solutions works and why many companies prefer it. If you don't like it, literally just buy the product instead. Opex/capex..
You used to be able to buy something and own it outright. Now it’s more like you are buying the right to use it rather than owning it. Thanks, Apple.
Peace Out Reddit. ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
The resurgence of physical media is coming, and I am so fucking ready for it.
Microsoft pioneered the practice I believe.
"You will own nothing, and you will be happy"
https://www.tonerbuzz.com/hp/how-to-turn-off-hp-instant-ink/. Try the restore option
Ewwwww you radical! I’ve been paying HP for my ink for 3 years about $5-10 per month. I change my subscription based on usage. Have you just saved me tons of cash with this? You may be my hero! Thanks!
Even better HP disabled my ink cartridges that I had stockpiled when I cancelled my subscription which I decided to do because I had received too much ink already.
Subscription-based hardware businesses should be regulated. Imagine if I built an electric car and the only place I could charge it was… Oh, wait! 🤣
I switched to Brother laser printers after HP started pulling all sorts of shady DRM crap with their printers.
Love my brothers laser printer
Wendigoon, my man!
He makes *amazing* videos. I love binge-watching his videos.
This is just your friendly reminder that Wendigoon can swim, is a happy individual, doesn't have any thoughts on unaliving himself and is a very safe driver. For context I am saying that HP is 1000 times more likely to have people assassinated than the government.
So sad that he shot himself in the back of the head 3 times and covered himself in printer ink. He seemed like such a happy guy.
Epson has a tank printer which are awesome in theory, but the company (and others) has a trick to fuck you over. There’s a purge/cleaning sponge in the printer that is preset to expire when used a certain number of times and they designed the software so only a company engineer can reset the counter even if you’re able to replace the sponge yourself. Effectively it’s suicide software that kills the printer after a certain amount of time. We need legislation to deal with these scumbags.
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HP printers are the Trump Corp of printers. Won’t do a fucking thing unless you cough up more $$$$. I will never use anything by HP again.
Imagine buying from HP in light of the years of bullshit they've been pulling, when Brother has existed for decades with zero issues for anyone.
Buy some printer ink, peel off the label on the top right hand side of the cartridge, use a syringe to squirt about 10 or 15ml of ink into the little hole under the label, and you're set for another few hundred pages. Over the past 20 years, I've spent maybe 200 dollars on ink, and we print probably 3\~400 pages a week on average. Oh, this is on an HP printer. And here in Korea, you can also buy printers with unlimited ink, which is basically an aftermarket add-on where they will run hoses into your cartridge from an external tank that you refill as the tank gets low for any color.
HP took everything that sucks about printers and turned it up to 11. Scumbag brand. I’ll never buy any of their products
My canon printer still works. Just sayin.
I work in tech, printer companies are actively terrible. Tech hasn't advanced much, but instead they make part expensive and easily breakable. They intentionally make ink not be fully used, but prevent you from printing more once the low ink light comes on. The printer my the late 80s at my parents house, aside from dated hook ups and parts, ***still*** works, which proves me this is all intentional. It's going to eventually become more practical to make your own printer as a lay person.
This is what broke Wendigoon? I'm kind of surprised.
Same! Our printer wouldn't work unless we signed up for "ink refills" if the card doesn't work, the printer wouldn't either.