What are your thoughts about HP Instant Ink?
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@scottalanmiller said:
It makes people into hoarders and makes people make bad life decisions, especially around things like housing and investments. They think of those things as treasured possessions rather than as investments that need to maintain value.
It makes people into human beings. Irrationality is sometimes called ruling with the heart instead of head. It's about our souls. It's part of what makes life worth living. If you want to go through life like some uber-rational Dr Spock then fine, but I don't think you should knock others for being more Kirkesque.
I appreciate I'm stretching the analogy somewhat for OEM ink
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@scottalanmiller said:
"To each their own" is another way of stating that you are avoiding rational thinking and are looking for a justification for it.
"To each their own" is also another way of stating that you can't be bothered to argue with someone on the internet about a relatively trivial thing so let's agree to disagree.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
"To each their own" is another way of stating that you are avoiding rational thinking and are looking for a justification for it.
"To each their own" is also another way of stating that you can't be bothered to argue with someone on the internet about a relatively trivial thing so let's agree to disagree.
Thank you.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
"To each their own" is also another way of stating that you can't be bothered to argue with someone on the internet about a relatively trivial thing so let's agree to disagree.
Agree to disagree is another thing that makes no sense to me. It's like stating that you know that you are wrong and are arguing just for the sake of arguing, but realized that everyone knows you don't have a solid argument and were arguing for its own sake not because you had a valid point, but instead of admitting that you state this in the hopes that people let you walk away pretending that you weren't just arguing for its own sake.
Honestly, I find both statements equal and both offensive, to some degree. It means that everyone who was working hard to make a point and demonstrate the importance of good decision making and helping companies were being trolled.
If you are going to take the time to state an opinion, back it up. If you find out that you didn't have a reason for your opinion, admit it. We all have times where we need to do that. Zero shame in that. But defending a point until demonstrated to be incorrect and only then playing the "agree to disagree" card is an attempt at misdirection. It's not agreeing to disagree, it's secretly acknowledging that the point made wasn't valid but not willing to admit it.
This is a very common tactic that I see a lot and it is not professional nor polite. Imagine if you were giving advise to a business or customer, they challenged you on why you were giving reckless or wasteful advice, and your reason was simply "because we agree to disagree."
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He could easily say "given that I've acknowledged that third party ink makes sense for normal printing, I will recommend that to others now that I've realized that OEM ink is wasteful." And then said "but for me, I just like OEM ink and it is my own money, so irrational though it be, that's fine." Nothing wrong with that.
What makes this important and why ignoring the discussion is important is that both here and in real life he advises people on ink to buy. He's shown that, except for doing photo printing which is not a normal task, third party ink is the better choice. He's stated it in the thread above (not in so many words, but he agreed that it was the better business decision) but then went on to keep promoting what was them a known bad decision. That's the concern. If I was a customer and read his comments here, then had him tell me to get OEM ink I would feel that he was scamming me - knowing that third party was better but intentionally giving bad advice.
We are IT professionals. Ignoring what we know to be true, ignoring logic and common sense, isn't about what we buy at home. It's about the advice we give to others. Agreeing to disagree or "intentionally giving bad advice" isn't a trivial thing in many cases. This is other people's money, other people's jobs, that we put on the line. People entrust us to at least attempt to make good decisions and advise them honestly. What we do matters. If it didn't, why do people hire IT pros rather than just making random decisions on their own?
There are only two choices of ink most of the time, one is cost effective, one is not, relatively. If we intentionally give the wrong advice we aren't just failing to give the best advice, we are deciding to intentionally give the worst advice. Sure, the worst advice is probably not the end of the world, but it is bad advice nonetheless and it matters.
And when you work in a printer-centric role like he does, that could, in an extreme case, end up mattering a few times per day. If we say it impacts one person per day at $300 per person savings, that is $1,500 per week or around $70,000 per year (spread over many people, of course) it savings OR loss that that advice would provide just for one person.
Even if this one decision is seen as trivial at this time, learning to recognize good decision making versus bad decision making is a critical IT skill. Without it, we risk not only lacking the value that IT normally has but actually becoming of negative value to the organization.
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So I did some math on this and I've revised my view on this program...
For people with fairly efficient printers, so 8600s basically, if you buy OEM XL cartridges, it's 1.7¢/page for black and 5.8¢/page for color. If you print almost exclusively black and just enough color to keep the cartridges good, as a general rule, it's cheap to buy the cartridges outright. However, the average person, so including non-IT people, go weeks between printing, or go to FL for six months a year and they have their ink dry up, etc. I think the program is great for the list tiers. If you're printing more than the 300 pages/month, the advantage in price starts to disappear. However, for the average person, the HP Ink program is actually a good value.
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Also, they mail the cartridges to you. If you sign up as soon as you buy the printer, they immediately send you a backup set of cartridges to replace your starters when they are used up. Then, as soon as the system detects you've installed that replacement, it automatically sends you a replacement for your hot spare. All that being said, I like this program a lot.
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So I learned from the HP rep who comes to Staples that, to date, over 95% of people who have signed up for the HP instant ink program, which to be fair is relatively new, have kept the subscription so far. Personally, especially for people who are snowbirds or do very minimal printing, this is a very cost-effective solution. The only downside is the printer must maintain an active internet connection for it to work. While this isn't really an issue for most home users, I could see it being an issue, potentially.
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@thanksajdotcom Good to know. Thanks
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That's actually pretty cool, but a bit scary to......Paranoia kicking in
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@BMarie said:
That's actually pretty cool, but a bit scary to......Paranoia kicking in
I've seen their web interface for tracking it too. It's actually pretty neat and clean.
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@thanksajdotcom said:
@BMarie said:
That's actually pretty cool, but a bit scary to......Paranoia kicking in
I've seen their web interface for tracking it too. It's actually pretty neat and clean.
I'll have to check it out.
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@BMarie said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
@BMarie said:
That's actually pretty cool, but a bit scary to......Paranoia kicking in
I've seen their web interface for tracking it too. It's actually pretty neat and clean.
I'll have to check it out.
If you currently have an HP printer, you'd have to buy a new one, unless your current one is less than 6 months old. It only works on their newest printers.
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@thanksajdotcom said:
@BMarie said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
@BMarie said:
That's actually pretty cool, but a bit scary to......Paranoia kicking in
I've seen their web interface for tracking it too. It's actually pretty neat and clean.
I'll have to check it out.
If you currently have an HP printer, you'd have to buy a new one, unless your current one is less than 6 months old. It only works on their newest printers.
Don't have a printer at all atm
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@BMarie said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
@BMarie said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
@BMarie said:
That's actually pretty cool, but a bit scary to......Paranoia kicking in
I've seen their web interface for tracking it too. It's actually pretty neat and clean.
I'll have to check it out.
If you currently have an HP printer, you'd have to buy a new one, unless your current one is less than 6 months old. It only works on their newest printers.
Don't have a printer at all atm
Well okay then.
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@BMarie said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
@BMarie said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
@BMarie said:
That's actually pretty cool, but a bit scary to......Paranoia kicking in
I've seen their web interface for tracking it too. It's actually pretty neat and clean.
I'll have to check it out.
If you currently have an HP printer, you'd have to buy a new one, unless your current one is less than 6 months old. It only works on their newest printers.
Don't have a printer at all atm
Neither do I!
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BMarie said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
@BMarie said:
@thanksajdotcom said:
@BMarie said:
That's actually pretty cool, but a bit scary to......Paranoia kicking in
I've seen their web interface for tracking it too. It's actually pretty neat and clean.
I'll have to check it out.
If you currently have an HP printer, you'd have to buy a new one, unless your current one is less than 6 months old. It only works on their newest printers.
Don't have a printer at all atm
Neither do I!
Well, you have a printer, but it's across the pond...
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Hardcopy needs to cease being a thing.
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