If you are occasionally forced to send in a paper form or your flight carrier insists on a printed boarding pass etc. it doesn't make economic sense to keep a printer functional at normal cost.
I see HP free tier as a legacy support system.
Ideally I'd print nothing. It's maddening how much bureaucracy still requires printing.
But I agree that on devices that you depend on it is weird.
I live in Amsterdam and have a subscription bike (and I pay for the fact that I will always have a replacement bike if any issues come up)... but I guess I wouldn't like a situation where I couldn't buy (and repair) a regular bike.
If you can plan ahead a little, you don't ever need to actually have a printer on hand.
However, if you print frequently, a B&W laser printer is probably a worthwhile investment. I bought one when my wife needed to do immigration paper work and it has been great. We still use it quite frequently to print out coloring sheets or whatever for my kids, as well as for sending in the occasional form. I haven't needed to buy a new toner cartridge, and I have printed around 1000 pages and it still prints as clearly as the day I bought it. I think we've spent about the same as printing at our library, but from the convenience of our home, and I've used the scanner function several times, as well as the bulk copy feature (insert stack of paper and it copies them all).
If you only print occasionally (1-2x/year), check out your local library or office supply store. If you print more frequently, a laser printer is most likely what you want, especially if you only need black and white. If you print a lot of color, maybe getting a color inkjet is worthwhile if you like the look of ink over toner. Most people shouldn't own an inkjet printer.
I do write the address on envelopes by hand, which I would use a printer for if I'd own one.
- Some of my forms for UK electoral registration.
- For 30% ruling the firm doing my application sent a form to print band return
- I set up a sole trader company and had to print and bring form to my setup meeting.
There were a few others too. The NL itself is generally good for digital services though. I only need to print a few things a year. Nothing frequent.
Here I can print a piece of paper with an address and 2D bar code on it (which is the postage), tape the label to a box, and leave it where the mailman can find it (usually on my front porch), drop it in the outgoing mail at work, or hand it to any mailman I see. No visiting a post office to mail things.
I have high hopes for a technology like that though. Natural contrast ratio as brightness increases is a wonderful thing.
Phones have got ridiculously bright backlights to solve this, and still sunglasses and a sunny day completely ruin the experience.
However, in this case, I like the idea that if tomorrow I wanted to print with Epson, I can sell / abandon this given HP printer and my future printing needs won't depend on my relationship with HP now. (OTOH, I am using HP printer/scanners for 10y now and this is the only brand I am satisfied with, especially for their Linux support).
> the model is great for some people in some cases. I know that my needs might be not the same as others'. For me the model immediately clicked because of my preferences (environmental friendliness, automated ink orders - this one is super convenient since I travel a lot and in the past the ink ran out EXACTLY when I needed on that only weekend when I was finally at home, etc.)
Anyhow, to me this only tells that this dude should probably rethink his finances if he has no idea what subscriptions he has. After that, maybe he should be aware what terms and conditions he accepted, instead of making a fool of himself on twitter.
Also, sometimes the lengthy T&C is a trick to make you buy a shitty service with a lot of hidden fees. Now if you check out their webpage[1], it's crystal clear what it is about, and what are their prices.
It does no such thing. He could send the subscription ink cartridge back and buy a regular cartridge for his printer.
To be clear: Anyone using HP Instant Ink (II) can cancel II and buy a non-II cartridge and be on their merry way. As noted in other parts of this post: The only thing OP was blocked from doing was using an II cartridge after he stopped paying for the II service.
Disclaimer: I do agree the tractor licensing situation is not good, but it's also not the same as this situation.
People in the industry it "Product as a Service": you buy a widget, but you don't own it, and have to keep paying the seller for the right to use it.
Just google: instantInk and scam
This is not a sarcasm, I'm just trying to adapt myself to this brand new world and not to cringe when hearing words like this from myself or anyone else.
The guy has been criticised numerous times in this thread, yet nobody resorted to name calling.
Please refrain from insulting people on public forums.
You are right, the model is great for some people in some cases. However, its a model where companies use software to lock you out of being able to use your hardware. This is becoming extremely widespread. Consider also the farmers having to deal with the John Deere tractor licenses and being unable to maintain their own equipment (or Apple preventing you from being able to upgrade or repair your macs/iphones).
The problem is that as the practice scales, people end up with no real property rights, and are just ensnared in a hundred terms of service agreements that they literally cannot escape while living a normal life.
Lots of potentially dangerous things are harmless or even pleasant on a small scale.