My new mission in life to let everyone know what a rip-off, greedy corporation HP has become

Question

I have been a faithful fan of HP for decades.  I started out on an HP IIIP.  It was great.  A real workhorse.  Through the years I have noticed the quality of HP printers declining, but I stuck with them.   I currently have an HP Officejet Pro8600.  Now I find out that I can't print anything, even in just black, unless every color cartridges have ink.  How greedy can you get? And from what I see, I can't even use recycled cartridges in the printer.   You are what is wrong with America.  You have become greedy and selfish.  As soon as this printer breaks (and with your track record, it won't be long!) I will NEVER BUY any HP product ever again!   

Answer 1

As the IT Manager for a corporate, I insisted that HP be the printer standard throughout the organisation. I reviewed the policy icw the technical support guys every 3 to 4 years and despite some bleating, insisted that HP remain the standard. With more important issues to worry about, new printer cartridges were always used and we did not mess around with refills etc. Good business for HP for 15 - 20 years.I thought I had current cartridges stashed in my cupboard and after unsuccessfully attempting to use them gave up. They are all just out of "use before" date. I am very confident the cartridges would work and am willing to take the risk and other possible consequences.Not being able to obtain other cartridges in the middle of the night, my sense of humour has failed.I will go out today and purchase a new printer - anything that does not have the cartridge protection crap that HP has had in place for quite some time now to ensure they have captive consumables consumers.I will use my reputation and authority to attack this issue because I can well imagine that many other users who foot their own printing costs are equally frustrated and this practice must have led to waste in a corporate environment where new consumables are simply stocked and drawn from the front of cupboards by users who do not care about costs or waste.