The first time my consumer HP printer refused to print my black-and-white document unless I refilled its magenta or whatever, I tossed it in the dumpster and bought an $80 Brother laser printer. Zero print problems, ever, since the switch. And the original toner cartridge lasted damn near forever, with cheap replacements.

You couldn’t pay me to use an HP printer anymore.

> refused to print my black-and-white document unless I refilled its magenta or whatever

Can't have you printing anonymously

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code

I did the same thing. Love my Epson ECO Tank.

Blame the short-sighted customers that are going printer shopping and see the $50 HP printer and the $150 $OTHER_BRAND printer and buy the HP without looking at the cost of supplies.

No. I blame the corporations that engage in illegal price dumping schemes and the US government which refuses to enforce antitrust regulations.

That's the thing, isn't it? I would gladly pay $500 for "THE LAST PRINTER I WILL EVER NEED TO BUY", $650 if it came with a 10 year parts and labor guarantee.

No one makes what I want to buy.

I worked at Lexmark around the time they tried this as a strategy. They sold a $300-400 inkjet printer whose (black) ink cartridges were priced at $5. It doesn't work, because the consumer is shortsighted and greedy and often self-defeating (see: the JC Penney pricing debacle).

Every HP printer is the last HP printer you will ever buy.

Not in the days before Carly Fiorina was driving the ship.

For sure.

A place where I worked in the early 2000s used old-school HP laser printers. The one in my unit cranked through boxes and boxes of paper with no trouble at all. It was all heavy-gauge metal, and must've weighed 50 pounds at least.

Post-Carly, HP printers became the same flimsy Chinese crap as all the other brands. Carly's bright idea was to take flimsy Chinese crap, slap an HP label on it, and sell it for HP prices.

You can get away with that. Once. After that, no one is going to ever buy your overpriced junk again.