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1. That's not how property works. I bought it, I own it, and I am not under any obligation to arrange my affairs to benefit the shareholders of HP at my own expense.
2. The ink is not subsidized. They are charging 100s of % markup on this ink. (they normally charge 1000s)
2. The ink is not subsidized. They are charging 100s of % markup on this ink. (they normally charge 1000s)
3. There is no choice. HP and a handful of other companies effectively own the industry and EVERY SINGLE ONE uses countermeasures to lock out competitive ink offerings.
4. When a customer refills their own cartridge, or buys third party ink, that is "the customer deciding"
4. When a customer refills their own cartridge, or buys third party ink, that is "the customer deciding"
The choices are not "Behave exactly as the company would have you behave" or "do nothing." You are not an ambulatory wallet: you have the right and duty (in a market) to punish firms for bad conduct by subverting it with both political and commercial choices.
Further, markets depend on *information*, which includes critiques of the deficiencies of offerings like this.
Again, the public's role in a market isn't "shut up and do as your told" or "shut up and do what someone else tells you."
Again, the public's role in a market isn't "shut up and do as your told" or "shut up and do what someone else tells you."
Advocacy, boycotts, regulation (especially antitrust) and other forms of collective action are critical to disciplining firms in the market.
The digital world is a steady march towards a new kind of feudalism in which nothing is "sold" to us, only rented, making us tenant farmers of everything that was once our property.
In this neofeudal world, private property is the exclusive purview of transhuman artificial life-forms called "limited liability corporations" and flesh-and-blood persons are unable to acquire clear title to anything --
Only an unequally bargained "right" to use it in constrained ways, defined by sprawling novellas of brain-meltingly dull fine-print that ends with "We reserve the right to alter this deal at any time without notice (so don't bother reading it)"
These legal fictions are backstopped by digital locks, in turn backstopped by laws that prohibit removing digital locks, even from your own property, even for lawful purposes.
This is not a "market," it's a grift, and grifters are con-artists who don't have to pick your pocket: they get you to sign a contract by which you agree that everything in your pocket now belongs to them.
