NEVER. BUY. ANY. HP. PRODUCT. EVER.

Printers. Computers. Monitors. Accessories. Nothing. Even if HP reverses every one of these policies tomorrow, it will never get another dollar from us.

There is no redemption offer here. No firmware patch that earns another purchase. No apology that turns into a discount code. HP can do a complete 180, and our answer will still be the same: never buy any HP product, ever.

A mother wants to print decorations for her daughter's birthday. Printer on the desk. Ink in the cartridges. Cable plugged into the computer.

Apparently, that's asking too much.

In the clip featured in Asmongold TV's video, she describes cheaper cartridges that worked for years, then a printer refusing to print. She says she connected to Wi-Fi after repeated prompts. The rejection message she reads calls the cartridges altered or cloned and demands original HP cartridges. According to her, that ink worked days earlier.

The video doesn't establish her exact model, account settings, or whether a firmware update caused the rejection. We aren't inventing a diagnosis. HP's own documentation supplies plenty to be furious about.

HP admits that firmware updates can stop previously working cartridges from working. Its Dynamic Security system blocks certain cartridges with non-HP chips or modified circuitry. This applies to equipped models; cartridges reusing original HP chips or retaining unmodified HP circuitry are an exception. HP's account of a firmware update affecting previously working cartridges; HP's Dynamic Security explanation.

Read that again. A software update can take a working combination of printer and cartridge and make it refuse to print.

What a contemptible thing to build into equipment people paid for.

HP cites quality, printing-system integrity, and intellectual property. Fine. Make better ink. Offer better value. Convince us. But when your answer to competing supplies is a software rejection, spare us the customer-experience sermon. We can see whose choices are being restricted.

And yes, the people who knowingly design and implement these restrictions deserve criticism too. Management sets the policy. Engineers turn it into the error message that ruins somebody's afternoon. Technical skill does not make the result less obnoxious.

If this were a cartoon, the executives who ordered these locks and the engineers who proudly built them would be launched into the sun. Naturally, the rocket would refuse to launch because someone installed a third-party fuel cartridge.

The real-world demand is accountability that costs more than treating customers this way earns. Removing the locks is something consumers deserve. It will not earn HP our forgiveness or another sale.

Then there's HP+. Activate it, and HP says you need an account, an internet connection, and Original HP Ink for the lifetime of the printer. HP+ isn't itself a subscription, and canceling Instant Ink doesn't erase that lifetime ink requirement. HP+ FAQ.

For the lifetime of the printer. What an astonishingly greedy condition to attach to a box whose job is putting ink on paper.

Instant Ink has its own catch: subscription cartridges stop working after the billing cycle in which you cancel, even when ink remains. Ordinary retail cartridges aren't automatically disabled by canceling; suitable replacements can work, subject to the printer's restrictions. HP's cancellation explanation.

The explanation doesn't make that remaining ink any less real. It just explains why software can stand between you and using it.

Consumers have had enough of this shit. Enough accounts. Enough activation conditions. Enough being told that buying the hardware somehow entitles the manufacturer to keep policing our shopping basket.

Your business model is your responsibility, HP. We are done funding it. We are done waiting for you to become a company we want to deal with. That relationship is over.

And the politicians? HP's 2020 corporate disclosure lists donations to Gavin Newsom and Marc Berman. FEC transaction records document its employee PAC's 2020 payments to the campaigns of John Cornyn, Joni Ernst, Mark Warner, Anna Eshoo, and others. Money went to recipients from both parties. Corporate disclosure. FEC itemized PAC transactions.

Here's my opinion: these dickweed politicians don't give a shit about consumers getting screwed by HP. They don't have to put that on a campaign poster for voters to demand answers. Every recipient should have to explain where they stand on manufacturers using software to block competing supplies. A donation receipt isn't proof of an ink-policy bargain, but it's a perfectly good reason to ask uncomfortable questions. I want answers, not another polished statement about how deeply someone values hardworking families.

Those donations are historical: HP says candidate contributions ended and its employee PAC dissolved in 2021. It still reports $3.56 million in federal lobbying spending for 2025. Lobbying is a different category of spending, and the public deserves to scrutinize it too. HP's current disclosure.

I hate government. I hate regulation. And HP has managed to make me want both pointed straight at its ink-lock-in business. I want rules that prohibit manufacturers from using software to revoke working supply compatibility merely to enforce brand loyalty. I want real remedies for affected consumers and penalties that cannot be shrugged off as a routine expense.

I want HP regulated into bankruptcy. If protecting customers destroys a business built around keeping them dependent, I won't mourn that business. No bailout. No redemption campaign. No second chance with my money.

Our boycott is permanent and covers every HP product. Not just the printers with the worst restrictions. Not just until the next apology. Every product. Every time.

NEVER. BUY. ANY. HP. PRODUCT. EVER.

Satirical disclaimer: I cannot be held responsible for anything on this site because I experienced a temporary psychotic episode due to my hormones. The imaginary legal department has reviewed this airtight argument and advised me to stop talking. Fuck that bitch-ass imaginary lawyer, too.

That disclaimer is a joke, not a medical statement or a legal defense. It does not remove responsibility for the site's contents.

Editorial for dontbuyhp.com. Revised September 29, 2026. The video account was reviewed using YouTube's auto-generated transcript; policy statements were checked against the linked HP documentation. The cartoon rocket passage is satire. This independent website is not affiliated with HP Inc.