HP’s Subscription – An Alternative to the Printing Problems in Smartphones and Tablets – a Comparison of Two Approaches

Subscribers who uninstall their subscription before the end date will be assessed a fee of up to $270 plus taxes, which decreases to $60 for every printer rented and the length of the subscription. After two years, users won’t see a cancellation fee if they return the rental printer and ink cartridges within 10 days after canceling their subscription. With these tactics, HP is creating the same type of subscription reliance that has made companies like phone carriers rich while limiting customer options.

For $6.99 per month, you can get a plan that includes an HP Envy printer and 20 printed pages. The HP OfficeJet Pro rental and 700 printed pages can be found in the most expensive plan.

There are people this plan will undoubtedly appeal to. Not everybody cares that deeply about feeling like they own their printer. I like to receive ink before I run out, even if it is only for a short while because I would be printing something critical anyways, instead of coloring pages for my kid for the first time.

But those are mostly functions of the fact that I don’t really print that often and rarely encounter the annoyances of printer ownership. For those who do, companies can take two paths. One is HP’s plan, it appeals to the frustration of user unfriendly experiences like scanning that aren’t compatible because you bought third-party ink and printers that become useless without some serious effort because you moved overseas. The other approach is making printers that mostly just do the thing you want them for.

The subscription plan is perturbing because it requires subscribers to keep their printers connected to the internet. In general, some users avoid connecting their printer to the internet because it’s the type of device that functions fine without web access.

WIRED: WIRED-Condé Nast and the Use of Your Non-Personal Data for Business Applications (An Ars Technica Perspective)

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Condé Nast is the parent company of WIRED.

HP said it enforces a constant connection so the company can check things that make sense for the subscription, like ink refill statuses, page count, and unauthorized use of your account. However, HP will also remotely monitor the type of documents (for example, a PDF or JPEG) printed, the devices and software used to initiate the print job, “peripheral devices,” and any other “metrics” that HP thinks are related to the subscription and decides to add to its remote monitoring.

Subject to the terms of this Agreement, You hereby grant to HP a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free right to use, copy, store, transmit, modify, create derivative works of and display Your non-personal data for its business purposes.