I've been saying for about 15 years now -- you'd have to be a masochist to buy HP printers. Why do people keep enabling these shits? You just encourage them to be even worse. Don't stand for even a little of their bullshit and they will change or die. You make a noose for your own neck.
This is true if everybody do it, otherwise nothing will change. As we know there are too many people on the planet and too many idiots among them that will buy these products and so company can't get away with everything nowadays.
Look at Facebook, Twitter, reddit, hp.
In my country there's a huge food company that put fucking poison in baby formulas, and killed some of them (and others with lifetime growth issues) and guess what? People stopped buying from them for 2 years, they pulled through and now they are one of the top companies.
People are still buying HP printers because there are no alternatives. In my experience Epson is the worst. The are all the same, and we have no alternative other than letting them fuck with us. And they know it.
I bought a expensive Ecotank because I loved the Idea of not having cartridges. To fill the tanks you still need cartridges though, so you still have the waste. No Eco in sight.
The paper in- and outlets were very narrow, what made refilling paper a hassle.
The software was very clunky, some cleaning programs did not work. After a year the prints became quite poor.
Another year later this print heads were clogged, no matter how much alcohol we poured on it. I threw the whole thing away. Never again.
The HP I hade a couple years ago was much better.
I am not saying this company is better than the other, I am convinced they are all the same. Some products are better, some are worse.
Funny thing is, I know all of this and their bad behavior. I needed a new printer, ordered it but they didn't have it in stock so they asked me to change my order and offered HP with extra toner and all that. Half asleep I didn't even think twice. It was good price, extra toner.
From day one, nothing but problems until I broke the spell last year and got a Brother printer. Night and day in terms of quality and obedience.
I assume that's the case with many people. Cheap printer available right now or some local deals make it even better looking. Someone who doesn't know better like mom or pop buys it and there it is, pain. Then they realize what they have done and perhaps sell the damn thing, so pain jumps on someone else who just needed a cheap printer.
I've bought HP a few times, because the new printer was about the same price as buying new ink cartridges. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just being real. And I'm not proud