If you’ve bought a printer recently, you’ve probably noticed something troubling: printer companies are aggressively pushing ink subscription plans. HP’s “Instant Ink,” Canon’s equivalent programs, and other subscription services promise convenience and savings. But scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find a business model that’s left countless consumers frustrated, trapped, and wondering if they even own their printer anymore.
The Subscription Push: Follow the Money
Printer companies have a problem: hardware margins are razor-thin. They’ve been selling printers at or near cost for years, banking on expensive ink cartridge sales to make their profits. But as consumers caught on and turned to cheaper third-party ink, these companies needed a new strategy to lock in recurring revenue.
Enter ink subscriptions.
HP’s Instant Ink program, launched in 2016, was the pioneer. The pitch sounds reasonable: pay a monthly fee based on how many pages you print, and HP automatically ships you ink when you’re running low. No more emergency runs to the office supply store. No more “low ink” warnings at the worst possible moment.
But here’s what they don’t advertise prominently: you’re not buying ink. You’re renting the ability to print.
The Fine Print That Bites
Consumer complaints about ink subscription programs have exploded across social media, review sites, and even in courtrooms. Here’s what users are discovering:
Your Ink Stops Working When You Cancel
This is the big one. When you cancel your subscription, any “Instant Ink” cartridges in your printer immediately stop working—even if they’re full. HP remotely disables them. Users have reported printers with perfectly good ink sitting on their desks, completely useless because they stopped paying the monthly fee.
Imagine if your coffee maker stopped brewing because you canceled a subscription, even though you had coffee beans in the hopper. That’s essentially what’s happening here.
Always-Online Printers: Big Brother Is Watching
To enforce these subscriptions, printer companies require that your printer be connected to the internet 24/7. HP’s e-series printers and HP+ program mandated this “always-online” requirement. Miss a payment? The printer calls home and shuts itself down.
Can’t connect to WiFi? Too bad. Internet outage? No printing for you. The device you thought you owned turns out to need permission from its manufacturer to function.
The backlash was so severe that in July 2024, HP announced they’re discontinuing their always-online e-series printers and phasing out Instant Ink. But the damage to consumer trust is done, and existing e-series owners are still stuck with the always-online requirement until they replace their printers entirely.
The DRM War Against Third-Party Ink
Even if you avoid subscriptions, printer companies have been waging a quiet war against your freedom to choose affordable ink. Through firmware updates, companies like HP, Canon, and Epson have repeatedly pushed “security updates” that suddenly make third-party cartridges stop working.
HP calls this “Dynamic Security.” Consumers call it a bait-and-switch.
People bought printers that worked with cheaper ink alternatives, only to wake up one morning and find their perfectly good cartridges disabled by an overnight update. HP has faced multiple class-action lawsuits over this practice, including a $1.5 million settlement in 2022.
Most recently, in November 2024, HP was hit with a $5 million class action lawsuit in California specifically targeting the Instant Ink program. The lawsuit alleges HP deployed a “kill switch” that remotely disables both printers and ink cartridges when customers cancel their subscriptions, effectively holding their devices hostage. The case also documents instances where subscribers couldn’t print for weeks because HP failed to deliver replacement cartridges on time, rendering their printers “entirely worthless.”
When Convenience Becomes Captivity
The irony is that these “convenient” subscription services have created new headaches:
- Late or missing deliveries: Class action lawsuits document cases where subscribers couldn’t print for weeks because HP failed to send replacement cartridges on time.
- Confusing billing: Many users don’t realize they’re paying for page counts, not ink. They keep getting billed even when they don’t receive cartridges.
- Price hikes: HP has repeatedly increased Instant Ink prices, including a 50% increase across many plans in late 2023, followed by another round of price increases in April 2025. The free tier? Eliminated in 2022, though later partially reinstated after customer outcry.
- Difficult cancellations: Multiple reports describe subscription cancellation processes worthy of a gym membership—complicated, with continued charges and shipments.
One user summed it up perfectly in a viral post: “My printer is extorting me.”
The Business Model Behind the Madness
Why are printer companies so desperate to lock users into subscriptions? Because it transforms their business from low-margin hardware sales into the dream of every CFO: recurring revenue.
Wall Street loves subscription models. They’re predictable, they’re sticky, and they turn customers into a perpetual revenue stream. HP has been transparent about its goal to transform its business from one-time hardware sales to recurring subscription revenue.
But this model only works if consumers can’t escape. Hence the DRM, the always-online requirements, the disabled cartridges, and the aggressive push to get new printer buyers enrolled before they understand what they’re signing up for.
There’s a Better Way: Print Without the Prison
Here’s the thing: printing documents shouldn’t be this complicated or expensive. You shouldn’t need a subscription to use ink you’ve already paid for. You shouldn’t need your printer connected to corporate servers to turn paper into printed pages.
That’s why services like Inktoss exist.
Instead of buying a printer, maintaining it, managing ink subscriptions, and dealing with firmware updates that work against you, Inktoss offers a refreshingly simple alternative:
- Upload your document from your phone or computer
- Choose your print settings
- We print and mail it for you
- No printer to own, no ink to buy, no subscriptions to manage
You pay for what you actually print—not a monthly fee whether you print or not. No firmware updates. No DRM. No cartridges that stop working when you cancel something. Just straightforward printing when you need it.
The Future of Printing
The printer industry’s aggressive push toward subscriptions and DRM reveals something important: the traditional model of home printer ownership is broken. When manufacturers are this desperate to lock in revenue through restrictive practices, it’s a sign that the product itself no longer makes economic sense for most people.
For occasional printing needs—and let’s be honest, most home printing is occasional—you don’t need a $200 printer plus expensive ink plus a subscription. You need a service that’s available when you need it and nonexistent when you don’t.
Break Free
Printer companies spent the last decade trying to turn printer ownership into a subscription trap. The lawsuits, consumer complaints, and HP’s recent retreat from always-online printers all tell the same story: people hate this model.
You don’t have to accept it.
Whether you’re a business professional sending contracts, a student mailing applications, or anyone who just needs to print something occasionally, you deserve better than ink subscription schemes and printers that hold your documents hostage.
Print on your terms. Not theirs.
Ready to escape the printer trap? Learn more about how Inktoss delivers hassle-free printing and mailing without subscriptions, DRM, or surprises. Get started today.