Consumer printers are a dying market, in case you havent noticed. Sales are trending down roughly 25% over the past decade. HP itself has seen its printer revenue drop from $29B in 2008 to $18B last year. Unit sales have seen a similar decline.
This is what desperation looks like. Nothing they can do will reverse the trend--its bigger than a single company. HP has its numbers to hit.. but are completely powerless to make it grow. So they do things like this, trying to slow the decline for themselves personally... but push more consumers away, accelerating the trend and the decline of their business.
I think the model is starting to show its cracks.. the old model was: buy a printer at a discount, pay us for ink. But if consumers are printing less, they're buying less ink, making it even harder to get back that printer discount. So HP needs to squeeze all of the ink sales out of the consumer they can... maybe if they can push out 3rd party ink, they can delay changing the business model for a little bit longer. But thats going to get harder every single year (if its even realistic).
I've owned lots of printers over the years, including a few HPs... I currently own 0 printers. And dealing with stuff like this is a small part why, but the bigger reason is: dont need a printer.
As far as I can tell, printing return shipping labels is the main reason to own a printer these days.
And even those often aren't needed, as UPS will sometimes scan a QR and print the label themselves. Or dropping off Amazon at Whole Foods.
But frequently enough there's no way around it. And if you don't go to an office frequently enough to use that printer, and buy things online (especially clothing) -- you still need one at home.
I haven’t owned a printer since early 2000s. The drivers and malware always annoyed me way more than ink prices.
My main print source is occasional business dealings. Just last week I hired a civil engineer for a consult and he sent me a PDF to sign and return. I thought it was archaic, expecting an esign, especially for the small job it was ($1000) but I think he was old school/low tech (even fumbled the Teams meeting invite we had pretty hard) so I just went with it.
This type thing comes up for me 2-8 times a year over the past 20 years. I just use printandgo@fedex.com and make an errand out of it. There’s a few brick and mortar locations near my home and areas I frequent so it’s never too inconvenient. I can sign and scan it back to PDF while there too. Printing alone was never enough for me anyway, so I’d either need to get a print and scan printer or two separate peripherals. Using FedEx costs me about $10-30 a year and just works albeit requires a little logistics on my part.
Is it a laser printer or maybe is it using LED? Pity they never marketed the LED printer more heavily so everybody's granny would dump their laser printer for a LED printer...
For whatever reason, black and white LED printers don't seem to have caught on. A lot of colour 'lasers' are actually LED printers, but most B&W ones seem to really be laser printers.
I've got a Brother black & white laser printer that is mostly a UPS label printer. But a couple of years ago bought big Canon color printer. Since then my blank walls have filled up with my favorite art, photos, people and things. I like that having the printer makes me continually on the lookout for things I want to print. I can value and memorialize things that would have been just a passing thought.
I print things all the time even on my black and white Brother laser printer. I often will print out articles and papers to read them on actual paper instead of a screen and to also take them on the go.
There are still other reasons to print stuff, and still preferably at home often enough. Hobbies (sheet music, game material), German bureaucracy, workflow preferences. However these companies made it completely impractical to own an inkjet printer which you might not use for 6 months at a time, and for some reason they aren't milking laser printers as hard.
Though, I'm pretty sure I'd just spring for a thermal printer if they made toner maintenance impractical too, personally speaking.
I can imagine additional things that'd be nice tac-ons. Like having some kind of printer is useful a few times a year, same with scanner, next obvious thing to add IMO would be a laser cutter that can cut cardstock. There are probably other things that could take advantage of the box with moving head form. So basically I can imagine the all in one merging with a cricut I guess. But yeah, not going to have tons of disposables or grow the market. And there's not really any reason that a printer shouldn't last a decade or more, which means yearly volume ought to be small...
Transport tickets, booking confirmations, (censored) ID copies for accommodations, all stuff I prefer to take with me on paper when travelling (even if just as a backup).
Also printing guidelines/designs/checklists for woodworking/leatherworking/sewing projects, but that's not something most people do.
I can't imagine not having a (laser) printer in the house.
isn't this the perfect startup: "like uber, but for printing" (sorry, I know thats cringe). One person per neighborhood that invests in a decent printer and hand-delivers it to you within the hour? It would probably be too expensive compared to print-via-mail though. It might work for USPS though, if limited to simple b&w prints, just have the postman print it out in the truck and leave it in your mail box with your mail.
This is what desperation looks like. Nothing they can do will reverse the trend--its bigger than a single company. HP has its numbers to hit.. but are completely powerless to make it grow. So they do things like this, trying to slow the decline for themselves personally... but push more consumers away, accelerating the trend and the decline of their business.
I think the model is starting to show its cracks.. the old model was: buy a printer at a discount, pay us for ink. But if consumers are printing less, they're buying less ink, making it even harder to get back that printer discount. So HP needs to squeeze all of the ink sales out of the consumer they can... maybe if they can push out 3rd party ink, they can delay changing the business model for a little bit longer. But thats going to get harder every single year (if its even realistic).
I've owned lots of printers over the years, including a few HPs... I currently own 0 printers. And dealing with stuff like this is a small part why, but the bigger reason is: dont need a printer.