Printer Schemes

[Perry Winkle]

There is a printer company (and probably others?) now selling printers that you have to pay a monthly fee based on how much you print. They detect when you are low on ink and send you new cartridges.

This is super offensive to me.

First, ink prices were (are) extortionate and people worked around this by refilling cartridges or buying off-brand cartridges. This is a perfect example of the market smoothing out pricing problems.

Second, printer companies compromised the quality of the hardware and partially subsidized the cost of the printers with the cost of ink. Hooking people with virtually free (shitty) printers, thinking they could make it up on their brand of ink.

Instead of recapturing some of that value by obvious conventional means*, they are trying to do an end run that basically makes your printer their's for life.

* Lowering the price of ink and improving the quality of printers and charging for them appropriately. -- Sure, they've trained consumers that printers should be cheap, if not free, but I have little sympathy for their short-sightedness.