- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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I mean, doesn’t this make sense? Why market and make products for people you don’t know will buy, especially if you already have a market
He said the quiet part out loud.
Executives lately are going full James Bond villain. They should evil laugh more.
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.
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.
I don’t want you to invest in me HP.
The first thing they teach you in CEO school is to churn out terrible products with DRM subscription refills where the DRM doesn’t survive more than an hour. That’s why we CEOs all have Juiceros, HP printers, and children who respect us.
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.
Nah I get it. Calling your customer an investment was just a little too naked for me, so I made a joke.
Oh, okay.
So HPs shitty business practices are at fault here. Glad it isn’t ignorance from the CEO. Phew.
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.
At fault for making customers the world over hate their company and products. What do you think I meant?
I have the displeasure of telling you I have owned a half dozen printers from this shit-hole company from the last 20+ years. If an asteroid hit earth tomorrow I would use my last moments to cheer on the burning of their corporate HQ.
I’m sure they can wipe their tears with the bills people keep giving them despite being hated.
Cool, this comment adds a lot to the conversation
As opposed to your story of how you’ve bought HP printers? Very illuminating
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.
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.
Weirdly enough, everyone else thinks HP equipment is a bad investment.
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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.
HP: why can’t we be together? Me: It’s not you, it’s me.
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 was fortunate enough to get an older HP color laser MFD that can use 3rd party toner carts. I’ve never bought a first line HP cartridge for it and I never will. My next printer will be some other brand that plays nice with customers.
The only reason I even have this printer now is because I got it crazy cheap off of craigslist about 10 years ago, with extra supplies. When it dies, I’ll get a brother or something better. I’ve bought 3 sets of toner carts for it in 10 years or so for a grand total of maybe 150$, and I use it a lot.
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.
