Some people have taken to Twitter to voice their feelings over HP’s controversial habit of charging users a subscription fee to print. Over the last few years, the cost of a home printer has decreased massively. However, the cost of printing in general has not decreased at the same rate with printer companies finding new ways to charge customers.
HP printers remain good sellers and one of the reasons is their low upfront prices. During holiday sales periods, the prices drop even further making some HP printers very cheap and a great way to print from the convenience of home. However, HP also has an Instant Ink program which lets people start a subscription so they never run out of ink. Technically, the subscription is related to how many pages you can print rather than the amount of ink that’s used or left in the cartridge. The problem is, not everyone is always aware of this subscription resulting in unnecessary and unwanted charges.
Recently, Ryan Sullivan took to Twitter to vent frustrations over the Instant Ink program. After spotting an unknown $4.99 monthly charge from HP, Sullivan cancelled the subscription. Thinking nothing more of it, Sullivan later found out that without the active subscription the printer could no longer be used. Since posting to Twitter, many more have joined the conversation and added their opinion on what many consider to be a “ransom” for using HP printers.
Cheap Printers, Costly Ink
The Instant Ink subscription has caused many consumers to look beyond HP to avoid having to pay the additional charges although there are ways around that happening. For example, Instant Ink lets customers print up to 15 pages each month for free. If a user stays below that limit then they are unlikely to be charged anything. Alternatively, users can always swap out the cartridge for a standard one – it’s the cartridge that’s linked to the subscription more so than the actual printer. Adding to all of this, Instant Ink is an opt-in subscription that users have to agree to when first setting up the printer. Choosing to opt-out at that point stops any charges from taking place – although HP does state in its documentation that customers “are required to return them to HP.” That being the cartridge that comes loaded in the printer when purchased. Regardless of the ways around the Instant Ink subscription and charges, the very fact that users have to go out of their way to avoid paying more highlights some of the pitfalls with opting for certain home printers. Especially as HP is not the only company that has found ways to charge customers after the initial sale.
Ink is notoriously expensive when purchasing official cartridges and this is even more true for color ink. Something that’s made all the worse considering a lot of printers will either force or default the printing to using colored ink – even when just printing in black and white. In some cases, this cannot be deactivated, while in others, the user has to know to go into the settings and change the default to “black ink only.” Then there’s the issue of printers refusing to print when one cartridge is empty. This is another issue that affects HP printers with the company stating “your printer is designed to print only when all ink cartridges have ink.” This limitation can become a major (and expensive) problem when you don’t have any color ink but simply want to print in black and white. With no way to bypass some of these restrictions, the cost of printing is not always as simple as the cheap printer price, as many on Twitter are currently pointing out.
