By default, consumers are their own best regulator. 
   You buy only the bread that tastes good, and that 
   shoes that fit, so the market will provide, etc.

This only really works if the product is cheap and most people can afford to try lots of competitors, or if the consumer is sufficiently knowledgeable.

It works pretty well for bread or chocolate: most people can afford to try different brands until they find one they like. No knowledge required.

It works less well for relatively expensive items like printers with relatively hidden pitfalls that require a some level of domain knowledge and research to comprehend before purchase. Most people can't buy a different printer every week until they find the one they like, and outside of the HN crowd many (most?) people don't have the domain knowledge to research a tech product properly.

Obviously third-party review sources (Wirecutter, Consumer Reports, whatever) can mitigate this somewhat but they are subject to their own biases.

    The second example: thanks to harmonised EU rules you 
    can put palm oil in your chocolate without loudly 
    declaring it and still call it chocolate on the packaging. 
    (You just have to mention the palm oil in the fine-print 
    list of ingredients.)

To me an ideal solution for printers or other cloud-dependent tech devices would be along these lines. I don't think HP's behavior should be outlawed, but there needs to be standardized messaging/warnings telling the consumer that:

1. the box contains a device that is nonfunctional unless consumers pay an ongoing subscription fee

2. what that fee is

3. a warning and the manufacturer can essentially brick the device at any time by intentionally discontinuing support or going out of business