eande

In the last days I had a sour experience with HP that compelled me to question their ethics. Four years ago, I invested in an HP OfficeJet Pro 7740 for my home office, and it served my family well. However, the trouble began when I purchased replacement cartridges, authentic ones from Amazon.

I don't mind the request to create an account and log in to use the software tool. But when I replaced the black cartridge just three days ago, the printer insisted it wasn't an original HP product, rendering my printer into a brick. Even with a second new set of authentic cartridges, I encountered the same error.

Some online search revealed they demand for a subscription — for $3.99, you're allowed a mere 50 pages of printing. I was not lucky to find a hack that worked and gave up. My daughter was "just pay for it", but I had to give her a nice speech about principle.

I firmly believe that everyday consumer products designed for occasional home use should not be held hostage by a mandatory monthly subscription. I understand the value of printer liquid, which is more worth than gold by weight, and the desire for businesses to control that market. However, I cannot support practices that stifle competition and hinder consumer choices ending up with monthly subscriptions fees, WTH.

Needless to say the next day that machine went in the dumpster and the new Canon TR8620a home office printer was a breeze to setup and works great.

Is it just me, or does this seem like another example of escalating corporate greed in America?

This request has been posted two months and all I can do is pile on another request within the comment section for Dark Mode.

I don't want to install a js or pay for it and just use my Safari browser. It can't be that hard for HW to add that simple feature.

Saves a lot of energy and better for the eyes. Let's make it happen.

I kept toying with the idea of starting an authority niche site, but I am not really sure if it makes sense anymore and wanted to get some opinions.

I spend my career as an EE/manager developing all kind of hardware products. In the last years I work as a Hardware Director for a robotics company and before that, I founded a startup here in Silicon Valley, which was again in hardware space. At my startup, I expanded my experience beyond development to fundraising, team building, marketing/sales etc all the way to building/maintaining website.

Reading this article about Authority Niche Site https://woorkup.com/niche-site/ I kept asking myself if one still can have a side project in 2019 purely on content and make some money on the side?

I don’t mind putting in some hours in the first months to get such a niche site up and running as well as maintaining the project with several hours a week. Also, my time frame is more of a long term meaning I can iterate, pivot and work on that for a half year, year or two, that is not a show stopper. As I have domain expertise in robotics I am sure I can add some value here to a niche site.

What I can not really gauge is how viable and how likely such an approach nowadays still is to make $200/m to $2000/m later on as income just with creating some content? Any thoughts or questions are welcome?

Thanks.