HP has spent years testing how much friction its customers will tolerate — DRM-ink cartridges, firmware that blocks third-party supplies, and a CEO who called non-subscription customers a "bad investment." Forced wait times fit the pattern: treat the customer as a cost to be minimized rather than a person to be helped.
https://boingboing.net/2026/03/20/hp-made-support-callers-wait-15-minutes-on-purpose-even-when-agents-were-free.html
Another wonderful example:
https://www.theregister.com/legal/2026/07/16/even-hp-resellers-thought-the-price-of-toner-and-ink-was-too-high-so-hp-india-facilitated-an-illegal-cartel/5272244
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has fined HP Inc. and some of its resellers, for what it calls “cartelisation” activities that inflated the cost of PCs and printers – and which it says HP used to head off threats from resellers to sell counterfeit ink cartridges.
Well he is off to go finish of Paypal lol