- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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Boo fucking hoo, HP.
I don’t want you to invest in me HP.
Eh, sure, that sounds accurate if a bit blunt.
To the downvoters, I mean this in a factual sense, since HP sells printers ar a loss, which is a sort of investment, since they sell the ink at a high markup to recoup their costs and earn money.
So if customers buy their cheap printer, but not their expensive ink, then the investment HP made in the customer is a bad investment for HP.
It’s a bad investment because it’s unethical and people care about this sort of stuff (especially when every company under the sun is trying to replicate HP’s vampiric nature).
“I disagree” - HP CEO
If they are selling their printers at a small loss because they want to make money on selling ink that’s basically fine. Sell the ink, make money. If they want to overcharge for the ink people will look elsewhere. If they have to DRM the printers to force people to buy their ink then that’s just fucked up.
I wonder when someone will come up with a hipstery, fancy-looking printer that sells on the basis of “we don’t give a crap about all that, here’s a bag of ink refills, just pay us more up-front”.
All the tech startups are out there trying to get you into a subscription, I think we’re getting to the point where this is annoying enough that you could sell very expensive, fashionable small-run hardware to people on the basis of not being this.
And consumers not being able to choose which ink they purchase makes HP printers a bad investment. It goes both ways. It was nice of them to admit what lengths they’ll go to to force us to use their proprietary ink cartridges though.
Prime example that for a publicly traded company the people buying the products are not customers for whom to create value, but a resource to extract value from.
Shareholders are the real customers for whom they create value.
“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.”
You hit the nail right on the head. They don’t see their customers as people buying their products, where they typically would be incentivized to deliver a good product at a good price. Instead, they see their customers as people being trapped into some sort of shitty subscription with them, like a cable or cell phone provider.
The entire point of maximizing profit is charging the most while expending the least.
It’s a game of seeing how low people’s standards are and trying to lower them even further.
As customers, the secret is to have higher standards. Unfortunately, this generation prides itself on avoiding conflict at all costs so they just take it up the ass and beg for more.
Exhibit B on CEOs not being worth the obscene money they make. This dude made $20 million in 2022.
Typical overreaching corporate dogs
if the customer does not print enough
Meaning all home users are a bad investment for HP.
That explains the ink cartridges malfunctioning before giving enough prints. That’s been engineered into them.
TIL Customers aren’t customers. Customers are investments.
I have a Canon Color LaserJet scanner/copier/printer for documents, and a large format Canon inkjet photo printer. Aftermarket toner, aftermarket ink, and they work flawlessly. I did a ton of research for both. I would never buy an HP printer.
Executives lately are going full James Bond villain. They should evil laugh more.
I don’t get why HP continues selling in the consumer market if they are struggling so much to make a profit.It seems like they are trying to force a business model on the wider market that doesn’t work.
The subscription model makes more sense in the B2B world where companies just want fixed costs without doing too much shopping around (for things like printer cartridges anyway).
Because this is the HP that’s focused on consumers, that’s their business. The enterprise segment was spun off in to Hewlett Packard Enterprise. They do have commercial printers, but it’s not that much larger of a business for them than home printer, from what I can gather.
Weirdly enough, everyone else thinks HP equipment is a bad investment.
An HP Printer is a bad investment.
