THE HP INKJET CARTRIDGE CONSPIRACY

[Anonymous]

The HP inkjet cartridge conspiracy MARCH 2005

It’s a
conspiracy.Who knows who’s behind it? Who’s at the top? Who are the pawns?
Either way, some people want some answers on why their HP ink cartridges run out
just when they need them the most.

Various news sites are reporting that a Georgia woman has filed a class
action lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard Co. The woman claims that HP has
outfitted its ink cartridges with the ability to expire on a specific date, no
matter whether there is ink still left in the cartridge or not, thereby forcing
customers to buy replacement cartridges so they can print their precious
documents.

The lawsuit was filed in the Santa Clara Superior Court on Feb. 17, 2005, and
the woman behind the suit is representing other Americans who have jumped on
board the class action bandwagon in order to nail HP to the wall for programming
its cartridges to just up and die. In fact, she’s representing Americans who
have purchased an HP inkjet cartridge since February 2001.

HP, of course, is the world’s top printer maker. Perhaps if some other
printer company had been on top and not quite the household name for printers
that HP is, the Georgia woman with a chip on her shoulder would be suing the
likes of Lexmark, Xerox or even Brother.

But hey, HP is number one, and that’s the company that is part of the
conspiracy to make people buy ink when they don’t need to — or so would seem is
the reasoning of the lawsuit filer. Tort reform anyone?

However, maybe this disgruntled HP customer has something going for her —
but perhaps she just hasn’t looked deep enough into the conspiracy. Sure, HP
inkjet cartridges might be programmed to stop working on a certain date. That
chip in the cartridges that tells computers when ink is low could also instruct
the cartridge to stop issuing ink to the printer when, say, Feb. 25, 2005 rolls
around. If HP is doing this, then surely there must be other companies in all
manner of industries doing similar things.

For instance, how often have you noticed that your coffee pot has a last
little trickle of coffee at the bottom that won’t fill a cup. Is it that there’s
no more water in the coffee maker? Is it that the grinds have been flushed clean
of all caffeine goodness? Surely not. More than likely, Braun, Black &
Decker and their ilk are behind a vast (vast, I tell you!) conspiracy to screw
coffee lovers out of brewed coffee.

Razor blades, as the ultimate consumable, go dull just when you’re late for a
meeting, don’t they? Have you just used that blade one too many times, or is
Gillette trying to get you fired?

How often do you find that you need to call home, but suddenly your cell
phone battery is dead? It’s definitely a conspiracy to make you go home and
charge up your batteries — or heck, buy a new one. Or maybe Nokia is just
trying to get you in the doghouse? They foisted the N-Gage onto the public. Why
can’t Nokia be capable of inflicting other miseries on us? Or maybe the company
wants you to buy multiple batteries so that you’re never out of luck?

Maybe the worst offender is that of battery manufacturers themselves — not
the cell phone type, but those AAs that we use to fuel our portable CD players
and other electronics. Is Duracell behind a plot to make batteries run out when
you’re miles from home and in desperate need of a music fix?

Also, when you want to be sexually aroused, don’t you always find that the
last condom has somehow up and disappeared? Or maybe that the condoms have up
and expired at just the wrong time?

Is it a conspiracy? Or is it that some people, like the Georgia HP customer,
should just realize that consumables run out, and it’s not because they’re
programmed that way

[Author]

March 8, 2005 at 10:53 AM