CAMPBELL, Calif. - eTradeWire -- eRacks Open Source Systems today published a guide to vendor lock-in, from printers that stop accepting cheaper cartridges after a firmware update to server hardware that limits what buyers can add.

The model behind printer lock-in is the loss leader: sell the hardware cheap and make the money back on high-margin supplies for years. To protect that, cheaper cartridges have to stop working. HP's own support document says a cartridge with a non-HP chip "may function for a period of time, but then cease to function," and HP released another round of that firmware in January 2026. Smart TVs follow the same model with viewing data instead of ink. eRacks will never buy or recommend another HP printer, and its guide explains why.

"Subsidizing the printer and then policing aftermarket cartridges to win the money back is absurd," said Joseph Wolff, founder and CTO of eRacks. "If your own supplies are better, charge a fair premium for the brand and people will pay it. Don't have the firmware remove customer choice: compete, don't restrict or mandate!"

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The same pattern shows up in servers, where it costs more. Synology limited full support on its 2025 Plus NAS models to its own or certified drives, then restored third-party hard drives on those models in October 2025. AMD's Platform Secure Boot can permanently fuse an EPYC or Threadripper PRO processor to one system maker; Dell's support page says enabling it "will permanently fuse the CPU to only work on Dell platforms." Some switches block third-party optics.

The eRacks checklist asks: Will the system run third-party drives with full features? Do fans ramp or warnings appear with another brand's card? Are firmware updates free? Is the CPU fused to the maker? Do the ports take standard optics? Can firmware be rolled back?

"Not every answer has to be 'no lock-in,'" Wolff said. "But buyers should know the answers before they buy, not after the first update."

eRacks builds its systems from standard components, and adding or changing components does not void its warranty.

The full post, with sources: https://blog.eracks.com/2026/11/vendor-lock-in-ink-cartridges-to-server-drives/