HP CEO Makes Up A Whole Lot Of Bullshit To Defend Crippling Printers That Use Cheaper Ink

When last we checked in with Hewlett Packard (HP), the company had just been sued (for the second time) for crippling customer printers if owners attempt to use cheaper, third-party printer cartridges. It was just the latest in a long saga where printer manufacturers use DRM or dodgy software updates to wage all out war on consumer choice.

The company could have taken the opportunity for self reflection, acknowledge their error, and attempt to shore up a fraying relationship with customers. Instead, HP CEO Enrique Lores went on CNBC to not only double down, but to make up a whole bunch of new nonsense to justify their unpopular actions.

On the segment, Lores claims that HP is crippling the use of cheaper ink and toner cartridges because they're simply worried they will infect consumers with viruses:

Last Thursday, HP CEO Enrique Lores addressed the company's controversial practice of bricking printers when users load them with third-party ink. Speaking toCNBC Television, he said, We have seen that you can embed viruses in the cartridges. Through the cartridge, [the virus can] go to the printer, [and then] from the printer, go to the network."

Ars Technica talked to numerous security researchers who laughed at the claim, noting that it's never been meaningfully documented in the wild, and isn't something consumers should be worried about.

Printer manufacturers have a long and proud history of hiding their anti-competitive price gouging under the pretense of user safety and security. In this case, HP cripples printer functionality using its Dynamic Security System," which stops HP printers from functioning if an ink cartridge without an HP chip or HP electronic circuitry is installed.

It's clear to everybody that HP is simply being obnoxious and anti-competitive to goose quarterly revenues. But you really get a good sense of Lores' distorted thinking later on in the CNBC article, where he calls savvy, cost-conscious consumers a bad investment":

This is something we announced a few years ago that our goal was to reduce the number of what we call unprofitable customers. Because every time a customer buys a printer, it's an investment for us. We're investing [in] that customer, and if this customer doesn't print enough or doesn't use our supplies, it's a bad investment."

That kind of thinking teeters toward the psychotic. HP is being obnoxiously anti-competitive, hiding it behind claims of user security, then declaring consumers the enemy if they're smart enough to see through the company's bullshit and shop for cartridges intelligently.

Of course for publicly traded companies, it's simply not enough to sell a quality product that people like. Wall Street's unrelenting need for improved quarterly returns at any cost routinely turns big companies and their execs into self-sabotaging, anti-competitive jackasses sooner or later. Companies start to nickel-and-dime users, skimp on customer service, or cannibalize product quality to hit quarterly revenue goals.

It's not clear if a handful of class action lawsuits will be enough to shift the company's thinking back to reality, but being so obnoxious that you permanently pollute the HP brand reputation in the mind of an entire generation of future shoppers might just do the trick.