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this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
1001 points (98.5% liked)
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Why would anyone buy such a printer? You could just go to a print shop at that point. Though honestly that’s already what I do so maybe it’s for the hikikomori or something. I don’t know why the home printer still exists in this day and age.
If I'm expected to pay a subscription that means every single aspect of the experience has to be outsourced to HP. And I'm including set up, cleaning and maintenance, consumables, and sending a man out to clear my paper jams for me, too. That's how it works at the print shop -- I put in money, they hand me prints completed to my specifications. Whatever happens in between those two events is not my problem.
But of course that won't be the case, so they can fuck off.
This is relatively common in the office world. Lease the copier/printer and it comes with free maintenance or replacement. Complete overkill for home printers though.
Why would that be overkill? I lease my car and it comes with a reactive and planned service contract included. If HP wants to make people rent their printers, they'll have to make it attractive to do so or lose a huge percentage of their home printer business.
I use my printer roughly twice a year. What exactly would I be getting out of this situation that warrants a monthly fee? Especially on a laser printer I could replace for like $150. It would economically make more sense to just replace the printer than deal with a service visit or shipping it out for repair.
Or go-to your local library, ours charges an exorbitant fee of a penny/page and gives $2 for printing for free for new library card holders lmao
Shit I forgot libraries offer this service. Even better.
Libraries are fuckin rad. Everyone should go to their local library if they exist locally. Just going in and out the door helps their counts.
My local library has a maker space with a few 3d printers and a laser cutter you can book time on. It's pretty sweet (if you can find a time slot).
Legal shit.
And financial shit, and tickets, and coupons, and recipes, and templates, and manuals, and ...
For when I need to run off a new character sheet right now.
I have a few edge cases where a printer is nice to have and I don't need the quality of a print shop, I find proofreading documents to be a lot easier on a physical paper easier than a screen and I can mark changes, and when I'm playing TTRPGs I like to have a printout of my map with enemy locations and notes so that I can place everything on my battle mat the way I intended to without messing with tablets, phones or laptops.
Even with the time it takes for me to drive to the nearest Staples and have them print it (all in all probably an hour long trip), having a cheap printer on hand saves the time and money spent getting a printout after like 2 printouts.
At the end lf the day it's not about the usefulness or obsolescence of the printer. It's about the bullshit subscription services have unnecessarily wormed their way into every aspect of our lives. If I buy something, it's mine, I own it, nobody else should be able to tell me what to do with it, beyond things that are already illegal.
I work from home and print a lot of UPS labels. For personal use I print targets and lots of misc. stuff. Nice to have sort of thing.
Also, it's a B&W laser, and that's a world of difference from inkjet.
I still wouldn't take it on a subscription basis. My last home Laser lasted me ~15 years till the drivers just weren't there anymore and I was mostly using it as a stand to hold other crap on top of it.
Lol, sounds familiar.
My 1996 Lexmark laser just died this year.
I haven't owned an inkjets in 20 years, and won't ever own one again.
Oh no. Hell no not on a subscription.
Really? You are having a tough time imagining why people may want to print things on paper in their homes? I guess you are not alone because the printzone has a page dedicated to education on this topic.
Please visit the printzone https://www.printzone.com.au/help-centre/7-reasons-why-we-still-need-printers/
Most of those reasons are why a print company is needed, there's very little about why I need a printer at home.
It's not all about you
It’s been close to 5 years since I needed to print something at work. At home, more like 20 years.
I haven't ironed my clothes in 25 years but with the power of imagination I can manage to grasp why other people might want to have an iron in their home.
Oh absolutely. There definitely are valid use cases for printers just like there are valid ways to use an ice pick. If you need to use huge blocks of ice for something, you really want to own your very own ice pick. Other people might not need one as much as you do.
I don't need one
Well, crafts is why I just bought my first 2 inkjets in probably 20 years. Epson Ecotanks - actually make inkjet reasonable. I use it to do prints for heat transfer and for dye sublimation.
Then there's the patterns for people who crochet or knit.
And occasionally forms - like passport renewal forms you have to mail in still for some reason, and you live a 30 minute drive from a printshop so having a B&W laser helps.
That said, I haven't recommended an HP since the 1990s. There's nothing I'm aware of they do better than brother in laser or epson in inkjet for home use (or Xerox in the business market).
My immediate thought. And no worries about ink drying up and whatever else might break suddenly. Just pay a shop if you want printing as a service.
Because I need to print at home, that's why it exists.
What an ignorant take. There are people who's life functions differently than yours.
I just replaced my 1996 Lexmark laser. I don't recall ever replacing the toner, perhaps once. It just worked, for 27 years, and I can probably fix it.
I now have a newer wifi b/w laser. Why should I go somewhere to print something? It would take a minimum of 30 minutes to do so, and cost $2-$3. My time is worth more than wasting it on getting something printed.
And wtf is hikki-whatever?