Ink Cartridges with Built-In Self-Destruct Dates 655
Linker3000 writes "The Inquirer has an article about HP ink cartridges having a built-in expiry date that can cause them to become unusable even if they aren't empty! Another twist on the 'chipped cartridge' stories--and also another kick in the teeth (and wallet) for the consumer methinks." This isn't really a new problem - here's a good piece about the problem.
All these fancy ink and 'laser' printers (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a free market. (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks Co^&aq (Score:1, Insightful)
Why is it that mergers seem to take the worst bits of both companies?
Re:Congratulations! (Score:3, Insightful)
Time To Expiration (Score:4, Insightful)
whats the big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
This Has To Be Stopped (Score:5, Insightful)
prevent this. A vendor can't sell after-market printer
ink cartridges for some products as they would be in
violation of the DMCA -- hence restraint of free trade,
not the original intent of the DMCA. This only serves
to keep prices higher and harms consumers, again not
the intent of the DMCA.
Can you purchase after-market products, new seats,
new engines, new spark plugs, new oil and gas for
your car? Imagine if GM did the following:
network, all using encryption (seats, radio, engine)
the car to start unless you had all the original parts
parts from them
up engines, no customized or replacement seats,
no super stereo).
What's to prevent them from doing that?
Re:It's a free market. (Score:5, Insightful)
Rus
Re:Time To Expiration (Score:3, Insightful)
HP has sold me a printer for the last time, next one will be another brand... unless I find printer refills for my old ink cartridges.
Where is the competition? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Time To Expiration (Score:-1, Insightful)
While this may be a nuisance for a very tiny number of people the timeframes seem reasonable to me. If you have a printer sitting with a single cartridge for more than 2 years you really dont need a printer.
No surprises, please (Score:2, Insightful)
On a different note, I'd like to see a mechanism put in place to allow customers to "re-charge" their current cartridges - like a photocopier card - rather than sending them to the landfill only to be replaced by the exact same product.
Re:It's a free market. (Score:5, Insightful)
in an ideal world, consumers would vote with their wallet and such manufacturers would have to change their practices. however in reality, the large majority of consumers are not well-informed, hence they make wrong choices that ultimately put everyone at a disadvantage. to be brutally honest i think this would be rather inevitable, given the general knowledge the average joe or jane has about computers and its related peripheral devices. the manufacturers probably know this, and are likely to prefer to keep it the way it is.
Cannon (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, the printers are a bit more, but if you're doing a lot of printing, they're cheaper in the long run.
It's not a free market (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HP has gone downhill in the last few years (Score:3, Insightful)
But you gender based drivel is just stupid. My company is led by a woman, and is doing very well thank you. In fact, I've got more respect for my CEO than any other I've ever seen. She's brought our company through the tech storm and over many other hurdles with grace, dignity, and forsight.
Perhaps you need to be let out of your cubical to roam around in the 20th century for a bit?
Re:HP has gone downhill in the last few years (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Time To Expiration (Score:5, Insightful)
it seems reasonable for a printer compny to leech mponey from it's customers because they aren't buying enough ink? to add restrictions that were not there before, for no better reaosn than to make more money andmake a fully paid for product useless. if thats not illegal it's at least immoral in my book.
dave
Re:It's a free market. (Score:3, Insightful)
Any ideas?
You're missing the point, bright eyes (Score:1, Insightful)
This points out the classic battle between free beer and free speech. Well, maybe it doesn't. But it still sucks.
batteries have expiration functions why not ink? (Score:3, Insightful)
As always, YMMV.
Re:It's a free market. (Score:5, Insightful)
This has very little to do with a free market. Even in a "free" market there are still laws... And the last time I checked, fraud was still illegal (at least where I live, the U.S.)
And IMO, this is fraud. If I sell you a consumable product, there is a certain (reasonable, I think) expectation that the product will function until the consumable resource involved is exhausted. If this wasn't a "computer" product, and therefore affected people besides geeks--imagine the outcry!
For instance, replace "ink cartridges" with "case of beer/pop." If you don't drink all the cans in your case before a certain date, they all automatically vent the CO2 and go flat so you have to buy more.
Folks, there would be riots in the streets and the FTC would be all OVER their asses...
Re:This Has To Be Stopped (Score:2, Insightful)
The DMCA might prevent you from taking an HP cartridge and reprogramming it so that it no longer thinks it is "expired." This would let you put brand X ink in the thing, and when brand X ink ruins the printer (that ink is corrosive, by the way) you sent the hole mess back to HP and demand a replacement or repair at HP's expense. That's a terrific business plan if you make brand X ink -- you don't have to do worry about how well your ink works in the printer because if anything goes wrong, people blame HP.
However, there is NOTHING (other than perhaps patent law, but don't get me started there) to prevent another company from reverse-engineering the printer and designing their own cartridge that has their own expiration date encoded on the thing.
The fact is, no one does this because it costs too much money in R&D to design a cartidge that can sit on the shelf for years and with corrosive ink inside that is designed to dry quickly on paper and yet not dry up inside the cartidge. (yada yada yada, read the second article)
It is simply a whole lot easier (and cheaper) to sell refil kits with crap ink and let someone else take the blame (and pay the expense) when it fails. HP is just protecting themselves (and their profits.) (Though they could have been more up-front about it.)
It may even be legal to replace the little chip on the cartridge. However, just like if you put aftermarket parts on your car, don't expect the original manufacturer to repair or replace it under warrenty when it fails.
Re:Time To Expiration (Score:3, Insightful)
I paid for that cartridge and the ink in it. I know damn well that I've hardly used any and that there is sufficent ink to do the job. I'm printing a cv, not colour pictures of the family so ultimate quality isn;t a huge issue, I just need black print. is it fair/moral for me to be forced into buying another cartridge (which might be more than half the cost of the printer) because HP decided I just wasn't spending enough money with them?
just because I'm not using something currently doesn;t mean I don't have a use for it planned.
it's like saying that having insurance is useless as I'm not claiming on it.
dave
Re:The Gillette Business Model. (Score:5, Insightful)
Slight nit-pick I guess, but it has always bothered me.
Re:Time To Expiration (Score:5, Insightful)
That means if a store sells you a 4 year old cartridge, you only have 6 months left.
But that doesn't matter, it's about principles. Where do you draw the line? If 99% of users are unaffected it's OK to purposely breake products? 95%? 90? 80? 60? By your logic, HP could dower these times a bit just for kicks and some morons would still defend their decision.
Purposely breaking products is vandalism. And just because there are not that many affected, doesn't change a thing. HP is not better than somebody trashing public phones, smashing windows or keying cars.
Re:It's a free market. (Score:5, Insightful)
in my opinion, this whole fiasco started due to bad foresight by a bunch of marketing guys. they tried to emulate the shaver business model, but failed to realize that brand recognition is not as important in the computer industry; people in general would be more willing to pay less for an X-brand printer cartrige that works almost as well as the original, but wouldn't be as willing to buy a Y-brand replacement razor for a shaver that might nick your skin when you shave due to poorer QC that manifests itself in more obvious and painful ways.
now that they've set the standard for ridiculously low prices for printers, they realize their share of the profits of the ink cartridge business isn't as large as they anticipated it to be due to third-party manufacturers. unfortunately, they can't raise the prices of printers to the level they were once at to make up for this loss, since consumers would certainly cry foul and instead rely on older printers that are not fussy about ink cartridges. they've got themselves stuck in a rut, and they have only themselves to blame for it.
now they've even implemented self-destructing ink cartridges....sheesh. i don't forsee this going very far.
Re:It's a free market. (Score:5, Insightful)
And herein lies the problem. The "free market" is an economic model that makes many assumptions. In a "free market" the theoretical consumers make rational decisions all the time, and are perfectly informed.
The fact that morons exist and are consumers is one of the uncountably large number of reasons that a pure free market will never exist in the real world, and therefore we can't magically expect the market's "invisible hand" to make things work well.
Bad comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus my bet is you'd put up with the cost of replacing cache batteries instead of losing whatever the battery is there to protect (transactions and such).
Cartridge Keyed to initializing printer? (Score:3, Insightful)
For home users this will be totally nuts.. cartridges may last 6 months at home..
That is still a free market (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Thanks Co^&aq (Score:4, Insightful)
Compaq didn't turn HP into a crap company, it was merely the final step in a multi-year process. Things went to hell the day HP made printers a priority over the good quality innovative test equipment they built the 50 years before.
HP, do you want to spend the rest of your life selling colored ink ?
Re:Time To Expiration (Score:4, Insightful)
Does this give HP the right to burn down his house "because of the fact that its owner is just not using it"?
Timesprout, you are sick. Seriously, you should think about what you are advocating, here.
And I didn't even start to talk about people buying several printer cartridges which of course will be on the shelf quite a while.
Re:Time To Expiration (Score:3, Insightful)
On the subject of printers, I'd never buy another Epson. Picked up a Stylus C42UX for my girlfriend and I to do assignments in university. At $70 (Canadian) for the printer, it was an awesome deal for us as students. (read: poor) Unfortunately, the cartridges cost $25-30 for the black and about $40 for the colour. The black cartridge prints about 100-150 sheets of text. The kicker is that if the printer monitors the ink levels, and if it's out of any given colour (C, M, Y or K) it refuses to print. So, if I'm out of yellow ink and I want to print a black and white document, I'm SOL until I go out and pick up a new colour cartridge for almost 60% of the purchase price of the printer.
As the final nail in the coffin, just to make sure you don't go and do something sneaky like buy a new printer every time you're out of ink, they put half-filled "preview" ink cartridges in their new printers, so after 50 pages or so, you're sunk again. Every time I think about it too much I get the near uncontrollable urge to take the damned thing out back, and go Office Space on it with a baseball bat, then mail the pieces back to Epson. I doubt it would do any good, but it would make me feel better about the whole deal.
It's sad too, because back in the day, Epson and HP both used to be reputable printer dealers who cared about their products and their customers. (But that's another rant that I'll save that rant for a journal entry sometime...one post, one rant maximum.
Re:Time To Expiration (Score:5, Insightful)
HP's cartridges still have ink in them. The ink worked satisfactorily yesterday, but today I can't use it because HP has decided that it's "expired". There is no physical reason that the cartridge shouldn't be working just fine: The ink is still there, and while it's not the "freshest", it still makes the marks on the page well enough.
Designing a product to wear out in a specified amount of time is done all the time, although I think it's reprehensible. However, ENFORCING that planned obsolesence by an artificial date-stamp is appalling.
I mean, should Sony get to come break my stereo because they decided it only is supposed to work for five years?
'Razor Blades, Not Razors' Model (Score:3, Insightful)
First, printers and particularly inkjet printers, follow the Gillette 'sell razor blades, not razors' marketing model. They practicaly give you the printer as an ink burner. So they do all kinds of nifty stuff to make sure you have things to burn ink on, and you keep running down to CompUSA to plop down another $50 on an ink cartridge. The printer also comes with lots of nifty printing software to give you reasons to burn ink.
In our printers, the cartridge was intelligent, and would keep count (yes, the cartridge did) of the number of individual dots of ink for each color of ink emitted. Knowing the average dot capacity of the cartridge (for each color), we could predict when the cartridge was running low and (kindly) tell the user to go buy another cartridge, and would even provide a handy hyperlink to our online store. Better, we would track the printer's average dots/page and page/day statistics to tell them they had x days of printing left. Buy now!
So this comes to me as no surprise that they have put an expiration date on the printer cartridge. They will due it under the guise that its ensuring 'fresh ink supply' and to ensure 'highest quality printing'. But, in reality, its only another means to force the customer into buying yet more ink. Cha-ching!
My advice, shitcan the inkjet printer, go buy a good laser printer. The total cost-of-ownership is much less in the long run.
p.s. - giving the inkjet away is evil and rude [catb.org] and only perpetuates the problem.
Re:The Gillette Business Model. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's a free market. (Score:4, Insightful)
HPs motives aren't totally evil here... they really *are* trying to inform the consumer that you have to replace your cartridges more often than 2-3 years.
TINSTAFL (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets do some math here:
Ink cart, Black - $30
Ink cart, Color - $30
Printer (after rebate, laptop purchase, whatever) - Free to $60
Do you REALLY think something that can precicely paint 1200 dots to an inch (That's roughly _115_ million dots on a full color page), in less than 4 minutes costs the company NOTHING to produce, package, advertise, ship and GIVE to you?
If you think so, take my advice and don't go into business.
All of the manufacturers are selling their 'low-end' printers at a loss and expecting to make it up in ink sales. If you decide you don't like that, go FIND a cheap, good, printer with cheap refillable ink...go ahead. What? you can't find one? Why do you think that is?
Pay for it up front or pay for it in installments. Any company that successfully stays in business will get your money in one of those two ways and STAY in business.
Re:What, exactly, is the problem? (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem here is that printer companies are trying to make a very large profit for a very long period of time. That is why companies want to be in this business, big profits.
The level of lock-in is somewhat unique to the computing industry where it is technically viable but it generates a lot of ill will on the part of the customer. In the long run it could put the likes of HP out of business
Re:The Gillette Business Model. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see Gillette creating blades that dull themselves if you don't use them soon enough.
Re:What, exactly, is the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't agree. Sure, people were suckered into buying "cheap" inkjet printers but don't try to tell me they did this in the full realization they would get ripped off on the ink.
Refusing to use a cartridge that is not exhausted is unforgivable. I'd have no objection to the printer (driver) complaining that the cart is old and advising me that the print quality may be less than optimal - in fact that would be a welcome feature. But to refuse to work? GMAB.
I will not be buying an HP printer.
Re:The Gillette Business Model. (Score:2, Insightful)
Then they wised up, kept the blades expensive, and went to a cheaper model of handles.
So technically, today you are right, but when taken in the context the business model is referred to , it is an apt analogy.
Re:whats the big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
> if the ink hasn't dryed up by the time you get around to using it, the quality is going to be shit.
What, do you work for HP? So HP is looking after my best interest to make sure my documents always look their best. How nice of them. Perhaps they should cut the expiration date in half just in case...
Pffft. I'LL be the judge of when my cartridge is due to be replaced. If your goal is to truely make sure your customer's prints are quality, how about innovation instead of limitation. Try to figure out a way to make the carts last longer. If your printers have the reputation of "lasting forever", I gaurentee your sales will go up.
anti-bundling laws (Score:2, Insightful)
It is however not legal. In the US we have anti-bundling laws. That is, you cannot make purchase of one thing contingent upon another. This is to prevent strange pricing scams.
But you say, ho, did you notice Gilette's Sensor and Mach III razors where the razor is virtually free and the blades are expensive? This is indeed a perfect example. There are aftermarket Sensor-compatible blades (I don't know why there are not Mach III ones).
So Gilette is free to embark upon their plan of charging you for the razor by pricing it into the blades, but they have no legal way to protect it. They have to hope the consumer follows along. And the consumer did, the Sensor was a success, people bought the on-brand blade cartridges either because of their better distribution or because people preferred a safer, more familiar produt. Enough people did so to make Gilette a lot of money.
Requiring the purchase of future replacement parts with a product makes it impossible to the customer to determine the true cost of a product. And is why this monopoly on cartridges must end.
Re:The Gillette Business Model. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you're wrong about that. The BLADE part is ancient technology -- it dates back literally thousands of years. (For that matter, so does ink.)
Back before refillable razors and disposable blades, everyone used a straight razor, which they sharpened themselves, and had to find their own hand-angle to hold it at, to avoid cutting their throat along with their beard. BTW this is why there were barber shops -- many people got their daily shave there, rather than mess with it themselves. (Barber shops used to do haircuts on the side, *not* as their main business.)
The only thing that's changed is that the blade is thinner now, since it no longer needs to be a permanent part of the razor, nor does it need to be able to endure years of resharpening. But at root, it's still the same ancient technology.
Conversely, there is quite a bit of engineering in the handles -- to make sure the blade is set at the appropriate angle so that most people will cut their beards and not their skin; to add lubricant; to consistently seat a disposable blade in the exact same place; to let the user adjust the blade angle to suit himself; to make sure multiple or flex-seated blades follow the intended path over bumps in your face; etc, etc...
Given that the printer is the handle and the ink is the blade -- you can see that the analogy is in fact quite exact. The printer and ink delivery systems needed lots of engineering, whereas ink has been around for several thousand years, and really hasn't changed all that much -- it's still basically pigment microparticles in a slurry, using a liquid that evaporates to leave the particles stuck to the page. The only engineering involved is finding the best particle size and slurry base to flow through the delivery system -- and that's no different from a medieval copyist figuring out which base and pigment were best for blue, red, or gold ink.
Re:"Refilling" has always been a marginal activity (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it's wrong that HP and others sell ink -- at whatever prices they think their market can bear. But I do think it's wrong to force the market to have no choice in whose ink they use. What's next, forcing us to print only on approved paper? It could be done, with a machine-readable strip in the paper (akin to what's used in money). No strip, no print.
That would be like Ford telling me I had to use only Ford oil in my truck -- at $5 a quart, instead of the usual $1/qt, even tho Ford's oil and everyone else's oil are functionally identical. If they can convince me that Ford oil is that much better, and worth that much more, cool. Making it less convenient to use another brand, fine. But making my truck stop running if I don't change the oil on THEIR schedule, or making it impossible to use another brand? No, that's not fair at all (nor is it legal under the Magnusson act someone referenced above).
And that's what the printer companies are doing with ink, using the cover of the DMCA to get away with it.
And just as I'd stop buying Ford trucks if they *forced* me to use drastically-overpriced Ford oil -- I won't buy a printer that has similar notions. They're cutting their own throats here.
If they'd sell rationally-priced refill ink, they could corner that market too. Keep the prefilled carts at the high convenience price, and sell "genuine HP ink" refill kits for those who care to take on the bother of refilling -- and they'd be competitive in the refill market (probably at a slightly higher price because of the "genuine" concept). In fact, ideally, they should partner with some existing ink refiller, which would expand the refiller's market as well as their own, and would make consumers happy to buy their printers, rather than pissed because they feel cheated by the current ink policies.
Cripes, if they'd spent 1/10th as much R&D on refill kits as they did on preventing refills, they'd have that market all to themselves already.
(I don't even use an inkjet anymore, and I still think it sucks.)
Re:It's a free market. (Score:2, Insightful)
If that were their only intention, they could show an informative message that tells users that print quality may be degraded due to an old cartridge, but to disable and not allow printing at all shows quite a different intent.
Re:It's a free market. (Score:2, Insightful)
"Your Inkjet cartridge may not be giving you the best print quality. It has reached its expiration date. If your printed pages aren't of the quality you expect, consider purchasing a new cartridge [OK]"
Bonus points for adding [OK, and don't remind me again].
Re:It's a free market. (Score:3, Insightful)
They're playing with fire if they do that; printer manufacturers are already under investigation for anticompetitive practices by the EU. If they have any sense, they'll back off fast.
Do you really think Carly cares about your silly rules? She is busy adding HP to her list of dying companies. As long as that rigged cartridge adds a nickel to her bonus, that's the way it will be.