I work in IT. I am not a sysadmin like many others here, but we all have the same roots. I have been aware of printer supply DRM and increasing shenanigans, and have made choices with that in mind. I did not expect to get fucked with a product I have owned for 2-3 years.

I was the kid starting from my early teens, that friends, parents, teachers, and the principals would ask for tech help and recommendations at their homes.

In elementary school and high school, the building was adorned by those tanky black and white HP printers, the ones that ran forever and made the lights flicker when they would first warm up.

My CAD class in high school had a HP plotter that I enjoyed figuring out how to set up and use when the district's IT department neglected to assist for months after its much-anticipated purchase by the STEM department.

At college I worked at the helpdesk and supported a variety of printing infrastructure and came to appreciate the quality of color laser and wax printers. I bought a brand new networked color laserjet for my house of students to share. That was a HP Color Laserjet that lasted over 15 years with more than 5000 pages through it, until it failed to survive one of our cross-country moves.

That printer was amazing, it lasted forever with its initial toner cartridges - they were full size, full-capacity, apparently the LaserJet 3600 was known for being sold with them which was neat. I didn't hesitate to go back and buy genuine HP supplies on the rare occasion we exhausted them, because I knew just how long they lasted.

I spent hundreds of hours volunteering with non-profits in Chicago on my weekends, setting up IT infrastructure amongst other things. I worked with those organizations to purchase and deploy deployed of varying-model of HP Color LaserJet printers because I knew they would Just Work with all of the mixed Linux, Windows, and Mac infrastructure that was donated - Generic PostScript, with their drivers, via wired or wireless - whatever.

I needed a new color laserjet to print some important documents, and didn't hesitate to go to staplesmax and buy the best of the HP color laserjets they had, to get color printing back up and going at home and know I didn't need to fight with anything.

It did exactly that, being a Color Laserjet "Pro" M454dw, hey it even duplexed whereas our now-retired one did not.

I was sad to have it run out of toner SO FAST. I realized it was probably some intentional under-sizing of the initial cartridges.

But ... I couldn't justify spending $676 ($169 EACH!) on a new set of cartridges from HP. Not only because I didn't appreciate the "the first [small] hit is free" aspect of this flagrant consumer-squeezing manipulation, but because I genuinely had no idea how long I could trust the EXPENSIVE replacements to last. If the printer had shipped with full size ones and they lasted us years for our use, I would then be able to weigh the pros/cons of buying genuine.

So I bought aftermarket. I bought one aftermarket set for $275 because I wanted to ensure they worked properly from that source. They did, and a great value.

I then ordered another set to have on the shelf, since I knew they would work and were sealed to sit for years until we need them.

That was back in March of this year. Today I go to print something, the blue is fading, so I replace the cartridge. The printer gives an error about non-genuine supplies and refuses to print. It accepts the other aftermarket toners that are already installed but refuses to take new ones.

I wonder WTF happened? How could some of the toners from the set work but others not?

I google it, and find pages starting to say things like "if you use aftermarket toner, disable automatic updates"

Wow, printers have automatic firmware updates? What the fuck is this?

Sure enough, my printer updated to the 2024-07-02 firmware at some point recently, and I guess after opening/closing the toner door it scanned and now refuses to print.

This 2 (or 3?) year old printer that I probably spent $400 on and the $500+ in toner I have here, is now junk

HP, as someone who has not experienced these issues firsthand and has avoided repeating things I have not experienced myself; and as someone who just had $1000 wasted by your moves -- congratulations , I am now part of that club.

I am someone who believes in the power of the market and avoids saying "this shouldn't be legal!" to everything - but I believe in right to repair, warranties, the legitimacy of a consumer to use aftermarket parts in/with the products that they own outright.

It should not be legal to push out software updates that intentionally remove functionality from devices which had no contract, no subscription, no entitlements required/agreed upon up front.

This is open hostility to consumers.

I bought genuine HP products. I bought genuine HP supplies until HP played consumer tricks that made me not be able to buy them in good faith that they were worth the value. I recommended HP printers because of my years of positive experiences.

I will never be buying another HP product. I will actively recommend everyone I know avoid HP products, especially printing/media-related products.

I am not a petty person, but I believe strongly in the need to push back about unfair and anti-consumer practices. I hope that my future roles in my career continue to give me a platform to deprive HP of as much business as possible for engaging in the practices that continue to erode confidence in the technology that we all live and work with every day.