Why Is Printer Ink So Expensive?
  • Brownian Motion@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    21 days ago

    I didn’t read the article but the straight reason is this: Printer companies adopted the “blades and razor” business model. The model was invented by Gillette, and if any of you here shave, you already know how it works.

    1. Sell a new razorblade “system” for a loss price. Design it with a unique attachment system, locking purchaser into buying blades only supplied by that business.
    2. Sell two pack blade replacement at about double the price of the original razorblade. 3 Stagger the prices of 3 pack, 4 pack and 5 pack, so they appear to add value, when actually the 5 pack cost of manufacture is still lower than the whole new razorblade “system” that was sold at a loss. But the 5 pack is marketed as “one free blade” based back on the two pack pricing.

    Printer Companies did the same thing, sell a cheap inkjet at a loss (last Epson I bought was $49, a miniscule amount of ink and it had a scanner built in!!)

    Now I offer you a challenge! (not really, you’ll already know the answer if you have an inkjet and had to buy original refills).

    A Brother MFC-L3760CDW is a colour laser printer/scanner/photo copier/fax/full duplex. It comes with (3 colours and black) enough toner for 3000 colour pages at purchase for a retail price $499.00

    How much do you think it would cost you to get a inkjet printer, and enough ink to print 3000 colour pages? Also consider having a full duplex printer/photo copier/scanner/fax at your disposal.

    • j4yt33@feddit.orgEnglish
      5·
      21 days ago

      So are you saying laser printers are the safety razors of the printing world?

    • progandy@feddit.orgEnglish
      21·
      20 days ago

      There are some inkjet options that do not follow that pricing model. The printers with an ink tank (epson ecotank, canon megatank, …) with ink for 3000 pages start at about $150, but are probably slower than the laser.

      • Brownian Motion@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        19 days ago

        I’ve not seen them, but I would imagine they are for office use, rather than home use. You would run into the same problem low volume inkjet users always run into, the ink dries out or clogs up the jets.

        Toner has no such problem, and you can print 3000 pages regardless of if it takes 3 months or 3 years.

        • progandy@feddit.orgEnglish
          1·
          18 days ago

          With their slow print speed, those cheaper tank inkjets are maybe usable for mostly paperless offices, or a home user that likes to print more often. You’d have to print at least one or two color pages per month to keep the jets clean.

  • TK420@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    20 days ago

    Shoutout to Brother laser printers and their provided linux drivers! CUPS is then what you can use to print to that basic USB printer from all of your networked devices.

    Linux and Brother, get those MapQuest directions printed out like a boss