What @Karel and @Jeff_Birt are missing is the fact that NOBODY is going out and intentionally buying COUNTERFEIT FTDI chips. The manufacturers, assemblers, and even the distributors have no way of telling what is genuine FTDI vs. the identically-marked counterfeit chips. THAT is why it was so incredibly offensive when FTDI deliberately bricked the products bought by innocent end-users from innocent manufacturers and assembled by innocent board-stuffers with parts from innocent chip distributors.
The situation is completely different with the HP printers. End-users are going out and buying HP printers which have had no warning about 3rd party supplies and historically have operated with 3rd party supplies for decades. Then HP comes along after the fact and modifies the hardware which is YOUR property (no longer theirs!) so that it behaves more to THEIR economic benefit. That is simply not justifiable to any logical way of thinking. And to do it surreptitiously over a long timeline sounds like the very definition of legal conspiracy. *
I embrace the "walk-away" solution. I will never again intentionally buy anything with an FTDI chip in it, and HP is now on my boycott list as well. These companies have fouled their own nest and created massive ill-will with customers. Neither company deserves any more of my business.
* On second thought. While you bought the HARD-ware from HP, you only bought a "license" to "use" the firmware inside. I'm sure that somewhere in the fine-print, throw-away, "shrink-wrap license-agreement" there is a notification that you don't OWN the firmware that makes the hardware operate. However, it is not clear that gives HP free license to come in and change the firmware without your knowledge of the implications.