Maybe not the same, as its more of a service contract. At work, we have had a site which has been closed for 2 years. for 2 whole years, every week the vending machine company arrive, try to get in, can't, ring us, and we say "that site is closed".

Well we finally after 2 years got them to remove that site from their system?

Their response? to remove ALL food from ALL vending machines at all our sites, to remove the coffee machines, and to remove the water coolers. The water coolers are especially egregious, as they just sit there doing nothing. they are from tap water, so not even replacing bottles etc.

Sometimes subscriptions are useful. I wish the BBC TV licence in the UK was a subscription. I cannot justify spending £150 on a licence for an entire year, just to watch a month of shows. but other times it sucks. I just want Microsoft office. I don't care if it will cost me £200. Right now my favourite game is subscription based, but i don't think i can justify the £9.99 a month, or £50 for a whole year. £50 for lifetime access? maybe.

Looks like I'm not changing my almost 10 year HP LaserJet printer after all..

What are good printer companies? Fuck HP and Epson

HP Printers is definitely one of the worst printers right now; I hate you need a account to use your HP printers

Even worse, if you subscribe to the ink service with an HP printer, it will update the firmware. But if you decide to cancel the service, they don't change the firmware so you now own a brick.

Can you homebrew a printer? Maybe fake responses to phone-homes?

It's so cool that we live in a world where you can 3d print a gun more reliably than you can 2d print an insurance card

I got a printer where I fill up the ink tank myself. Fuck all these other printers.

This should be illegal, hell I have a TP-Link router and it’s got a subscription model for the features, that a decade ago were basic features of a router that you’re spending hundreds of dollars on. Unless we make it unpopular from a media/social standpoint, they’ll keep it up. Too make it worse, the router won’t even allow you to manually choose your own channels, you have to let it decide for you. Even if you have an IT background and can decipher the better channel, it decides to choose heavily trafficked channels on all bands. Let me make me own mistakes and learn, I don’t want to be forced like an invalid in a nursing home.

Meanwhile my laser Kyocera prints full color full duplex and doesn't try any funny business.