HPs Company Practices - Revealing The Festering Beast

TLDR: HP bad. Don't buy HP computers.

I come to you to reveal business practices that have been in use by HP for a very long time. These are problems I have seen as a computer technician in HP computers that are often predatory ways to make you lose out.  Sadly, HP wasn't always a company that harmed its users in selling their products but were once a good company that made really good things.

Sadly they have gone by the wayside and seem to be more out there for profits versus customer satisfaction. As a libertarian I am a staunch believer that companies can do good. You just need to poke them with a stick when they perform evil practices.

Below I have a list of predatory tactics used to save HP money and leave the consumer out in the cold.

1. Excessive processing on an HP laptop is used just on data mining.
   Yes you heard me right. HP Touchpoint Analytics Client is a program that got automatically installed on just about every computer with an HP logo on it and its osle purpose is to data mine users which ends up using a large chunk of CPU and RAM usage. No user seems to know about this and I have been uninstalling this on people's HP almost every day to help speed their PC up.
    
2. Faulty hardware that barely functions longer than a year before kicking the bucket.
   Have a computer where the motherboard fried for no inexplicable reason? Chances are... it's an HP marking that computer. To top it off, I like to offer people on a motherboard replacement but often times the firmware is designed in a way that doesn't let you swap out a motherboard. You end up just having to buy a new computer. And it is very often that components will be proprietary components that can only be purchased through HP. Power supply, motherboard, cables, all seem to be using HP-only parts.
   
   Even then I would also even find inexplicable random BSOD errors due to voltage problems coming from an HP printer or a faulty motherboard BIOS not taking a card properly. It is very sad to face a customer when they just want their computer to work that I can't just replace a regular PSU that 95% of computers have because of some strange voltage configuration designed for an HP all-in-one.
3. Laptops often built with coppery-looking plastic that guarantees hinges breaking on laptops.
   
   This plastic is so dang cheap. And if you have an HP, chances are you are sporting this type of coppery-looking plastic. I don't know why but even though the hinges are metal, they are mounted on the coppery plastic both on the computer bottom and on the back of the monitor. People's regular use causes wear and tear which causes the plastic holders for the screws to come loose and you requiring extensive repair to fix. (Or buy another HP...)
   
    
4. Cutting corners. Just like every other manufacturer.
   Laptops have been getting cheaper and cheaper. It has gotten to the point that a lot of these companies sell their laptops at a loss and sell peripherals making a profit on pheripherals. I've seen instances of computer being loaded with 30 gigabyte solid state drives and they basically have a 'working' computer until enough Windows updates installs to fill up that 30gb in just a few days.  Worst comes to worst, license keys that arent bound to laptop firmware. Things like Microsoft Office licenses are often called 'OEM' license keys designed to be installed once and only once. So if you hard drive goes bad (which it probably will eventually) you are out of luck on an expensive Office/Windows license keys. (Note: lately firmware has been offering keeping of license keys for Windows 10 but not office thankfully. At least it is a step in the right direction)
    
5. Printers.
   Enough said. HP printers are the bane of IT existence. I have seen situations where a printer randomly stops working due to a Windows update. Albeit that is not HPs fault and more of Microsoft's fault. But shouldn't there be some sort of a buffer zone for this? Why wouldn't HP just release new driver packages for Windows 10 on older hardware? Unless they had a desire to make more money in making you buy a newer printer? Thanks HP.

Now I am not saying that 100% of HP computers are crap. I am just saying I have seen 'more' HPs go bad over other brands like Dell, ASUS, and Lenovo units. Heck, you may very well love your HP to death. I'm cool with that. Though I feel like a lot of these practices happen to be very underhanded and almost designed in a way to trick users into purchasing more products. If this is not an example of a horrible business model, I don't know what is.