Its not like im a fan of the plan (i opted out and buy my own ink) but HP is right
Its super easy to be on a "heavy" plan, get 10 ink cartridges, then cancel the first month and use that ink for a year. This causes HP to lose profits. They are betting that people don't really print as much as they think they do, most people are overpaying for their plan, and a small amount are actually using it up.
Imagine if Netflix would let you KEEP your downloaded content after you stopped paying. Customers would pay for a month, download everything, cancel, then watch stuff throughout the year
HP essentially created an optional netflix-style ink cartridge plan. As long as you pay you get unlimited cartridges. The second you stop paying you lose it all. No one is forcing you to opt in, but I know a lot of people who like the style even if they understand they're overpaying
The cost of the subscription should (And I'm sure does--more than) cover the cost of the ink you receive. It's not the same as your Netflix analogy at all, because there's only a finite amount of ink you'll receive, and HP knows exactly how much it is, and sets the price of the subscription accordingly.
well there is still a difference. Under the 100 page plan, you can print 100 completely black pages using the max amount of ink for the plan
or you could print 10 pages with a single sentence in them
HP sends you new cartridges depending on your use. So the second person in my example would not get a new cartridge, while the first would get 3 in the mail the next day. Both are paying the same monthly payment.
Its a dumb idea, but some people opt-in to it. And from my personal experience people end up with lots of extras being shipped to them. They can have 5-6 full cartridges at home at a time, for future use. HP doesn't want you to get stuck without ink, so they overstock you. Cancelling can cause people to take advantage of that overstock
> HP doesn't want you to get stuck without ink, so they overstock you.
Presumably they also don't want to spend more than necessary on shipping. It's a lot more economical to send 6 cartridges at one time, than to send 6 packages with one cartridge each.
> The cost of the subscription should (And I'm sure does--more than) cover the cost of the ink you receive.
It might not even cover shipping costs for the ink, you pay $0.99 and receive a full set of fully filled cartridges, that may last you a few years on a $0.99 subscription.
why does it have to be a baseline? how about "send a more ink when the current one is low". like amazon's feature to automatically reorder certain items when they run low. you can then specify that each order should be 1, 5, 10 or however many cartridges you need, and if you pick 10, but are not a heavy user then it simply takes longer until you need another delivery.
> why does it have to be a baseline? how about "send a more ink when the current one is low".
Because that is how much a single, high capacity ink cartridge costs on average. Can't be lower that the price of the cartridge, if you're buying whole cartridges. Also, will probably be more than this, because you might need several cartridges for more volume, or several types of color cartridges.
if that's the price of a cartridge, and i need that much ink in a month, then sure. but if i don't use up a whole cartridge in a month, or even if i use it up faster, then there should be an option to get the next one only when the current one is empty. why should committing to a fixed amount be the only option?
charging by pages printed is just creative accounting and unfair to those that print lots of pages with little ink, while giving an advantage to those who use lots of ink per page. what's more, that's information i don't even want the printer company to get.
there is only one benefit to charging per page: print shops, because they charge per page too, so the cost and profit margin per page will remain the same regardless of how much ink they need.
Its super easy to be on a "heavy" plan, get 10 ink cartridges, then cancel the first month and use that ink for a year. This causes HP to lose profits. They are betting that people don't really print as much as they think they do, most people are overpaying for their plan, and a small amount are actually using it up.
Imagine if Netflix would let you KEEP your downloaded content after you stopped paying. Customers would pay for a month, download everything, cancel, then watch stuff throughout the year
HP essentially created an optional netflix-style ink cartridge plan. As long as you pay you get unlimited cartridges. The second you stop paying you lose it all. No one is forcing you to opt in, but I know a lot of people who like the style even if they understand they're overpaying