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The plague of subscription services has been slowly throttling our bank accounts lately, and it won't stop any time soon. Don't get me wrong, it's convenient when you don't have to think about downloading the stuff you need, but some ideas are getting out of hand.
HP's CEO Enrique Lores, has recently announced that the company wants to "make printing a subscription."
"Our long-term objective is to make printing a subscription. This is really what we have been driving," he said (via Ars Technica), and this might sound like a wild suggestion but it's not exactly unexpected. HP already has an Instant Ink subscription program providing customers with ink, toner, and cartridge recycling services. Its CFO Marie Myers noted that it can bring a "20 percent uplift on the value of that customer because you're locking that person" in.
Selling printers is not a very profitable business, it seems, so HP is trying hard to come up with new ways to monetize its products. One of them is Dynamic Security, a system that doesn't allow HP printers to work if the ink cartridge is not made by the company. Interestingly, HP has lost millions of dollars in lawsuits against this innovation, but it hasn't deterred it yet.
HP claims Dynamic Security helps protect customers from viruses that can be hidden in third-party cartridges. Is it plausible? Doubtful, but I'm no tech specialist, so let it be on the company and its desire to earn more money. After all, Lores believes it is investing in users when they buy its stuff:
"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."
Will we once live depending on subscriptions all the way? Time will tell, but some companies, like Ubisoft, think we should start getting used to not owning games and, well, printers I guess.
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