Judge denies HP’s plea to throw out all-in-one printer lockdown lawsuit - AiO devices won’t scan or fax without ink, and plaintiffs say IT giant illegally withheld that info from buyers::AiO devices won’t scan or fax without ink, and plaintiffs say IT giant illegally withheld that info from buyers
Am I the only one who thinks it’s crazy that the only grounds they have are that HP didn’t disclose that their All-In-Ones won’t let you scan or fax without ink and not, you know, the fact that they do that in the first place? It should be illegal to disable critical functions of a device simply because an unrelated function is temporarily unavailable. There’s no technical reason HP is doing this other than, “fuck you, buy more ink.”
Unfortunately this is the difference between illegal and unethical, and I don’t gather that HP cares much about ethics. Hopefully right-to-repair laws will cover these cases in the future too.
I think this is the perfect example.
What they did was legal but man it’s unethical
Well, no.
The argument of this case is exactly that what they did is not legal because they didn’t inform people upfront before the sale
It seemingly (IANAL, but that’s my understanding from what I’ve read so far) is absolutelly legal to sell a device which can be disabled by the manufacturer under certain conditions if the prospective buyer is informed upfront of that “feature” (and depending on the Legal jurisdiction “informed upfront” might mean large bold lettering in all promotional material).
It’s also legal if something stops working because it requires some kind of input it doesn’t have power (i.e. it’s legal if the ICE car you bought won’t work if you don’t put the right kind of fuel in it).
However selling something as having certain characteristics and then it turns out it hasn’t can be considered a Bait & Switch, which is illegal (a form of Fraud) in most places. (Note that this is the direction the plaintiff is comming from: not that it’s illegal for the AiO to work like that but that it’s illegal for it to be sold without notifying potential buyers upfront of that restriction).
With the legal complexity that comes from the devices working as a one and that scanner not being disabled, just not working when other parts of the device are missing a required input, you need that a judge actually looks into into (rather than issuing a summary judgment) to determine if it falls within the boundaries of legality or not.
It’s anti-consumer, but I guess that just falls under unethical for now
I recently had a printer to configure (IT) that was HP, and it needed an internet connection and registration to print over USB (well, at all); guess what? Dead ethernet port. Now (even with a working USB) the printer is just landfill food waiting to reach our bloodstream in a few years time. I
fucking hatelove HP!Guess who the laws are actually designed to protect
The last and only printer that I bought from HP worked well and didn’t pull any shenanigans, it was a Laserjet 5L.
Since then, feedback from colleagues and what I’ve seen from reviews and tech communities put me off buying HP again. Between their cloud printing, their inkjet cartridge verification and the USB ports covered in stickers and now this…
Yeah HP is a disaster.
They used to make good calculators too, including a financial model so good that I bought an Android emulator.
I still have a LaserJet 4000N in service (circa 1997 - same era as the 5L) and it’s a workhorse that never dies. Once upon a time, HP did take pride in their products. Even then, though, their toner cartridges were abusively overpriced - they just hadn’t yet figured out how to prevent 3rd party competition.
I mean, you can sell a shitty product, that’s not a crime, the crime is the false advertising or if it is a danger to people
Imagine in the future, your car just stopped working entirely and lock you out because your heated-seats subscription expired.
Canon did this to me years ago. Maybe 15. I haven’t given one cent to Canon since, and I was a big fan at the time with their cameras and such.
Fucking greedy assholes
HP are a real scumbag company.
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This might be too cruel. But what if we made them use cheap shitty printers for the rest of their life.
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And we get to spray them with cheap 3rd party ink
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I still don’t get why anyone is buying inkjet printers for the past 20 years. It makes zero sense to me.
Color laser printers are very expensive and still don’t achieve the same picture quality as an inkjet printer. And I have read once that dust from laser printers might cause cancer but not sure how much there really is to that.
Color lasers are about $300 dollars, do better quality, and have 10x the output per cartridge on a bad day. And they don’t dry rot when left without printing for extended periods. Replace the ink on an inkjet more than twice, and a laser is already a better deal.
If you want to print pictures to hang on your wall, ink printers print much better color quality.
If you want flat graphics to print on a document, laser is better.
Just depends on what your use case is.
Not just that, but it’s impossible to find a colour laser that’ll do 11x17 and duplex. I think my only option is a small office printer lease.
No they’re not, and the quality is better. Quit lying.
They are, though. By a huge margin.
You think $250 is “very expensive” for a printer?
This is gonna blow your mind mate - statements like “very expensive” are entirely subjective.
Also ten times the price of the cheapest inkjet printers is considerably more expensive - one could even call that ‘very’ expensive in comparison, no?
Why is anyone buying a printer at all?
Hey, printer people out there! What do you you use your printer for? My printer is just sitting idle collecting dust. Can’t think of anything I would need to print. Everything is digital these days.
In less developed countries, you’d need printed copies for a lot of stuff, especially legal documents.
Speaking from experience.
Exactly this. I live in a first-ish world country around Asia, and the moment you need paperwork dealt in any other nearby country, a printer is going to save you lots of trips to the convenience store.
Ugh… Asian beureaucracy at its best…
South East Asia?
Oh, I remember those. The government here has been working to go digital for the past 30 years, and now it’s beginning to pay off.
Good for you! My country is going toward that direction, but corruption kinda keeps the progress slow. Still some progress here and there.
I have a printer for the occasional need to print documents. Mind blowing I know, but that’s why I keep one around. It gathers dust most of the time, but it’s super useful when the odd need arises.
I for one can’t read correctly anything longer than a lemmy post on a screen. I print more or less anything that I’m want to read with my brain fully present - I usually outline and comment on paper too, makes it easier to remember. Latest use case : printing out dnd character sheets to do my charac design for BG3
Ok, that seems like a sensible use case.
I’ve heard many people say that reading stuff on a screen is more distracting and they have trouble focusing. I don’t feel that way, so screens are just fine for me.
My in-laws gave my son an HP Envy. I placed a big Apple logo next to the HP logo. I have Apple logos on my trash bins too. Basically, any trash around the house gets an Apple logo stuck to it
So brave
My guess. Marketing.
“IT giant illegally left out that info”. Bruh. THEY LIED!
They did, but that’s not a legal term, so a judge won’t use it.
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I have no printers in my house. I refuse that entire industry. Its a scam.
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