Solving the HP Laserjet 3330 Driver Download Problem

It's an old story and a very sad song: technology moves so fast you can't afford to keep up. So when we updated our computer at work, we decided to keep the original printer to save on costs.

That decision became a time drain of astronomical proportions. Why? Because we had lost the original installation cd for the printer driver.

Easy enough...HP has a website where you can download the drivers. But alas, after searching for the applicable driver for my HP 3330 Laserjet and clicking on the official "download" link an uncountable number of times, I was forced to admit that something was just not right in the HP universe.

A quick search of the internet, and then a LONGER search of the internet, revealed that I was not alone. Forum after forum contained vociferous complaints about the exact same problem I was experiencing with the Hewlett-Packard website and the 3330 Laserjet in particular.

So why is this perfectly good printer being hung out to dry by its neglectful creators? Where is the long-term support and excellent customer service that should be standard for a company with HP's clout and market presence?

I cannot determine any other answer but that it all comes down to money (as it always does). American consumers on the whole are wasteful, materialistic, and poor budgeters. Manufacturers of retail technological goods know exactly how to market to such a demographic and, truly, cannot produce their desired profits by supporting older models in lieu of selling newer ones. So if their non-stop advertising campaigns cannot convince us to upgrade every year or two, then by willfully dropping support for our outdated machinery they will force us to do so. Shame on all of us who have subscribed to the dead-end-road of wasteful consumerism. I think I had better go dig that old pair of neon-pink shoelaces back out of the garage sale pile after all. Apparently the 80's are back in style, and they should go wonderfully with my sober black work shoes.