Prime example that for a publicly traded company the people buying the products are not customers for whom to create value, but a resource to extract value from.
Shareholders are the real customers for whom they create value.
The entire point of maximizing profit is charging the most while expending the least.
It’s a game of seeing how low people’s standards are and trying to lower them even further.
As customers, the secret is to have higher standards. Unfortunately, this generation prides itself on avoiding conflict at all costs so they just take it up the ass and beg for more.
“Every time a customer buys a printer, it’s an investment for us. We are investing in that customer, and if that customer doesn’t print enough or doesn’t use our supplies, it’s a bad investment.”
You hit the nail right on the head. They don’t see their customers as people buying their products, where they typically would be incentivized to deliver a good product at a good price. Instead, they see their customers as people being trapped into some sort of shitty subscription with them, like a cable or cell phone provider.
An HP Printer is a bad investment.
deleted by creator
My HP 1300n is a beautiful beast of a printer, but I also got it for free and have never put name brand toner in it.
An HP cart is over $200! Meanwhile TrueImage offers theirs for $15/pc.
Exhibit B on CEOs not being worth the obscene money they make. This dude made $20 million in 2022.
And consumers not being able to choose which ink they purchase makes HP printers a bad investment. It goes both ways. It was nice of them to admit what lengths they’ll go to to force us to use their proprietary ink cartridges though.
I think printer purchasers are an “investment” to the company because they are a loss leader (or close to it)…. Low to no margin to pull you into the shitty ecosystem.
I don’t get why HP continues selling in the consumer market if they are struggling so much to make a profit.It seems like they are trying to force a business model on the wider market that doesn’t work.
The subscription model makes more sense in the B2B world where companies just want fixed costs without doing too much shopping around (for things like printer cartridges anyway).
Because this is the HP that’s focused on consumers, that’s their business. The enterprise segment was spun off in to Hewlett Packard Enterprise. They do have commercial printers, but it’s not that much larger of a business for them than home printer, from what I can gather.
Maybe they think there’s a large untapped market for home businesses, but I don’t think there are a lot that need to print frequently
TIL Customers aren’t customers. Customers are investments.
You say that like it’s a bad thing?
When I buy a jar of peanut butter, if I have a good experience eating it I’m going to buy that brand again. “Investing” in your customers is business speak for making sure your customers have a good experience.
The disconnect here is HP doesn’t seem themselves as being in the “printer” business. They see themselves as being in the ink/paper/repairs business… and they advertise their printers as costing 8.6 cents per page. If you’re happy to pay that much, then I’d argue HP probably is a good choice.
Personally I use a basic Brother laser printer, with cheap paper and cheap toner it comes in at around 1 cent per page. When I need higher quality, I get it printed by a professional printer - those cost quite a bit more than HP’s pricing but I don’t do it often and it’s much higher quality than any (affordable) HP printer.
Investing in customers is not necessarily the same as customers being investments.
I would argue that HP made bad investments in their customers and their customers not being bad investments.
What investment are they making in customers? Are they selling something at a loss? Should the FTC BoC ask what exactly they mean here?
Yes, they sell the printer for a loss and the ink for a crazy markup.
if the customer does not print enough
Meaning all home users are a bad investment for HP.
That explains the ink cartridges malfunctioning before giving enough prints. That’s been engineered into them.
Maybe take it as a sign that your product sucks?
Too much subsidized by accessories and usables*
Investments? Do customers cost you money? That’s now how any of this is supposed to work. I’m not sure the CEO of HP knows anything about business. Dude, the customers are supposed to give YOU the money.
Yes. They are investments. It’s a very common business model across several industries. To sell the initial machine for net cost or even at a loss, if it means customers will have to come back to you for additional supplies. Because that’s where the money is.
I’m extremely confident that the CEO of the very profitable company HP. Knows more about business than you do.
deleted by creator
When you say “at fault” what exactly do you mean? “At fault” for what? Making profits?
They’re not here to make your life easier. They’re here to make money for themselves.
deleted by creator
I’m sure they can wipe their tears with the bills people keep giving them despite being hated.
You do realize that the article being discussed here is precisely about how the model is not making people give them too many bills, right? Like, that’s what the CEO is complaining about, that they aren’t rolling in money and profits are not as high as they want them to be, so he is compelling the company to be more aggressive and abusive towards customers to correct what he perceives as a flaw. They are literally being sued for their anti-competitive practice that they insist on despite not being profitable unless they break the law. A battle they have lost several times on other jurisdictions, this business model has costed HP penalty fees before.
“You do realize” they made $3b in profit 2023.
deleted by creator
As opposed to your story of how you’ve bought HP printers? Very illuminating
Nah I get it. Calling your customer an investment was just a little too naked for me, so I made a joke.
I mean, yeah. Cost of acquisition is a thing. I’m hardly an exec, but basically it’s amortizing total cost of acquisition efforts over net new subs.
In no way do I intend to defend the shitshow that is HP. Just pointing out it’s a valid metric.
I wonder when someone will come up with a hipstery, fancy-looking printer that sells on the basis of “we don’t give a crap about all that, here’s a bag of ink refills, just pay us more up-front”.
All the tech startups are out there trying to get you into a subscription, I think we’re getting to the point where this is annoying enough that you could sell very expensive, fashionable small-run hardware to people on the basis of not being this.
They’re called laser printers. Ink is for idiots, especially if you only print once in a while.
He’s not wrong. They are bad for their product as a subscription model.
Just like anyone who still buys HP. If you buy HP, you deserve their absolute garbage products.
Hp just trying to save the environment by making home printing as painful as possible. It really is a 4d chess move
I have an HP BW laser printer with an offbrand cartridge that I paid a fraction of the price. The printer screams at me about critically low ink since about a year but prints are totally fine and as good as the first day.
I’m sorry for your loss HP… You can suck it
I have a Canon Color LaserJet scanner/copier/printer for documents, and a large format Canon inkjet photo printer. Aftermarket toner, aftermarket ink, and they work flawlessly. I did a ton of research for both. I would never buy an HP printer.
Aftermarket toner, aftermarket ink, and they work flawlessly. I did a ton of research for both. I would never buy an HP printer.
I did the same when I purchased my Samsung color laser. I specifically excluded HP…then Samsung went and sold their entire damn printer division to HP. I refuse to use the Samsung drivers now because I suspect HP would push firmware into the unit blocked non-HP owned toner.
No regrets on my Brother laser printer! Didn’t even consider HP, they’ve been trash for ages.
Brother has gone pretty down hill over the past 5-10 years.
