The UK retailer’s founder John Sollars outlines why he refuses to update printer firmware.
John Sollars, Founder of Stinkyink
Writing on Stinkyink’s website, Sollars notes that as a “geek”, he loves “technology and I want to have the latest version of the appropriate software”, while at work “it is part of our security procedures to ensure that we have the very latest Windows patches and security fixes applied”. At home he does the same, “until that is I am offered a printer firmware upgrade”.
He notes that he refuses to upgrade printer firmware as “the old adage ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it’ springs to mind”, even though “in the past that hasn’t stopped me” in terms of breaking a PC, or upgrading server software, because “printer firmware upgrades are the bane of my working life”. With Stinkyink having been in business since 2002, Sollars has sold cartridges online since then and “watched the ebb and flow as manufacturers and compatible suppliers have battled it out”.
OEMs have “always had the upper hand” because they “spend a fortune” on research and development to “ensure that the ink they supply works superbly”, but buying OEM printers, cartridges and paper means “you will also spend a considerable amount of your hard-earned cash”. As compatible manufacturers can offer working products “usually about 20 to 25 percent of the cost of the originals”, you can get “a huge saving on a product that most consumers won’t be able to tell the difference about”.
The issue is that “over the past 25 years of inkjet printers the technology has changed significantly, and during that time the OEMs have spent a fortune on legal battles with the third-party manufacturers”, protecting IP and earning themselves “a reputation as ‘rip-off’ merchants” because they sell “cheap printers” and make money on “expensive consumables”. IP protection is now more “sinister” in inkjet, he adds, as “we are now all connected for better or worse to the internet”.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has added to this, so “when you first unpack your printer and connect it to your wireless network”, the printer is “connecting itself to the OEM’s corporate servers and checking whether it is in need of an update”. Starter cartridges run out and you need to replace them, which is “when we realise how expensive the original cartridges are and plump for some nice cheap compatibles”.
Having ordered these, and started using them, you might then get a firmware update, which you install, and “then your cartridges stop working”, so you have to buy OEM originals and “curse at the expense, and swear you will never ever buy that OEM’s printing device ever again”. You are “stuck with” the firmware update as “there is no rolling back to the previous version”, Sollars points out, and he gives consumers a series of questions to ask when prompted to update.
These include “is your printer working OK?”; “is it using the particular cartridges that you like and can afford?”; “is there any reason or justification given for the upgrade?”; and “will life be better and the sun shine more after the upgrade?”. Sollars added that if your answers are yes, yes, no and no then “don’t touch it with a proverbial barge pole, clear the message” and carry on, because “you’ve done the right thing and the machine will continue to serve you as it has in the past”.
He concludes that users should “be warned [that] some of the larger OEMs connect and upgrade without even telling you”, with HP Inc’s OfficeJet Pro machines “notorious for this”, and Stinkyink runs several “in our offices just to keep an eye”, urging consumers to remember “caveat emptor (buyer beware)”.