>So why do printer companies charge so much for ink? Because they can. Because they have merged with or bought most of their competitors. Because they have weaponized laws to make it illegal for you to modify your printer, or for rivals to make ink cartridges that work with it. Because they can send updates to your printer whenever they want, not just to add features or protect your security, but to steal functionality from you.
I realize that style of writing appeals to the "us vs them" mentality but I'd rather read about the underlying economics and finances.
The blog's paragraph could have also mentioned that aspect and as a bonus, also educated readers enough to generalize the business practice and later "pattern match" on similar scenarios such as "cheap mobile phones" that are locked down with 2 year contracts. I.e. "teach a man to fish ... yada yada"
> I realize that style of writing appeals to the "us vs them" mentality but I'd rather read about the underlying economics and finances.
But this is the underlying economics and finances.
They can use a "razor and blades" business model because of all the things mentioned in the text you quoted. If they didn't do those things I could just order from amazon a cheap ink for their cheap printers from a rival and they would either go bankrupt or need to sell printers closer to what they make them for. But you can't because they made it illegal for the rivals to create those cheap ink cartridges.
In fact talking about "Razor and blades model" obscures this fact, not illuminates it.
I think this comment obscures the nature of how user hostile printer companies are. Razor and Blades strategy was meant to be user-friendly: you cannot afford to pay the full cost upfront for a fancy razor, so you will pay it on time.
What printer companies are doing is user hostile, not user friendly.
> I realize that style of writing appeals to the "us vs them" mentality but I'd rather read about the underlying economics and finances.
Economics and finances are inherently simply a different way of stating "us vs them". Just because the predatory behavior is studied in business school doesn't make it less predatory. Same with finance.
I mean, the fact that the manufacturers can make the use of third party ink very difficult is absolutely vital to making the razor-and-blades style economics work; once they've done that it kinda follows naturally, but it's an absolute prerequisite.
Yeah, the econoomics of this market explains it all. Printers are a commodity; you really can't differentiate one from another, so it's a race to the bottom on prices. But it still costs money to make+ship them at high enough volume to take advantage of economies of scale. The only way you can play in this market is by being large enough to sell the printer at a loss and recouping money on recurring supplies/subscriptions on the back end.
But make sure you buy Brother toner because when you use third party toner the print quality is intentionally degraded. Cheap, but not all that cheerful IMHO.
Practical, reliable, affordable and just works technology; The amazing Brother HL-L2320D printer. I can't remember the last time I bought toner. The thing just keeps on printing. I think they make a wireless version, but I can't be bothered to change something that just works the way this printer has. We have fancy printers at work that are also Laser based and they are not as reliable the printer sitting next to me.
Because the VAST majority of people that purchase printers are super casual users, that will maybe print out 10-20 pages a year, and let the printer collect dust rest of the time.
Being the "IT guy" among family/friends/colleagues, 9 out of 10 times that's the case. Someone asks me if I can help them with their printer, they bought it 1-3 years ago, they've barely used it, but need new ink cartridge.
It's always the same printers. They saw one on sale for $40 or whatever at some big box store, a bought it.
The reality of different places are... different. Here (Brazil) the cheapest laser printer costs 3x the price of an ink jet printer, and it only prints monochrome. Doesn't make sense for a printer for personal use in a home that will be used once in a while.
To be honest, nowadays I would prefer ink tank, as their extra cost (here) are smaller than the price of the cartridges that will need to be bought in the next years. And they are cheaper than the cheapest laser printers sold here.
Black and white? Color? Printing documents or photos? How much and how often are you printing?
I bought a B&W brother laser printer in 2015 and loved it. I had a cheap $80 inkjet and while it worked fine I printed so rarely that my ink cartridge would dry out.
The original brother toner cartridge lasted me 4 years so I'm happy just because of that.
I ended up giving that to my parents and got a brother color laser printer. It's nice for documents but inkjets are superior for photo printing.
But for the last 10-15 years I can upload photos to the Walgreens a mile away and get them in less than an hour on real photo paper and don't have to worry about them fading like a lot of inkjets.
Because you can get a basic inkjet printer with included cartridges for $30 vs $350 for a color laser printer + toner. I'm sure the latter makes sense if you are printing at scale, but for occasional use there's really no point spending that much.
A few reasons. Laser doesn't do well with thicker or textured paper. More durability in commercial situations. And then there is color. The Epson EcoTank line seems to be selling very well.
Depends what your substrate is. Inkjet still works better for things like vinyl, photo paper, and heat-sensitive stuff. I'm not sure you can do borderless printing on a laser printer, either. For everyday office and personal print jobs, it's hard to beat the convenience and relative reliability of a laser printer, but inkjets still have their (niche) place in the world.
Because inkjets print prettier pictures, are more versatile, don't have long start up times, don't generate indoor ozone.
There are professional inkjets available that are more respectful of your right to buy cheap supplies than even brother - specifically I can pour bottled ink into printers of at least two manufacturers.
And (professional) modern inkjets keep up with print speed.
What's the quality of color prints on current lasers? Last time I checked it was quite below inkjets. Not that I would recommend inkjet to anyone, they're unusable in home setting where you have long periods of time without printing.
Even though I'm sure someone has created a laser-printed photo exhibition to make an artistic point, photographers (and galleries, and museums) still exist–both hobbyists and professionals.
Aren't ultra-fine particles still a potential health issue with laser printers? Especially in home office or domestic use, where they typically aren't placed in a separate printer room?
You know, my biggest problem is not the price per se. I have an inkjet, and use it maybe twice a year. But every time when I use it successfully, it is extremely convenient to be able to print at home. So convenient, that I wouldn't even mind the price.
What I mind is, that because I use it so rarely, that damn expensive cartridge dries up every 2 or so years, after printing maybe like 30 pages. That's what kills me. That's one thing that it's more expensive than gold, but it has awful quality.
"Funny" thing is, I used to have a Xerox laser printer years ago. The toner dried stopped working in it also if it wasn't used for months. The main difference was that the toner cost 3 or 4 times the price of an inkjet cartridge.
FWIW ink is not expensive, but traditionally the nozzles and electronics and the printhead are all bundled with the cartridge, making it expensive. The big companies now offer inkjet printers with ink and print head separate (eg Canon pixma) and for those printers the ink (in a literal bottle) is priced much more reasonably.
There are other issues of course, I am not trying to give them slack here. If you don't use self cleaning once a week, the printer head clogs and you have to replace it anyway. If you use self cleaning too much, the waste ink reservoir fills up and your whole printer is toast unless you reset the firmware somehow. But there is a whole community for those kind of things.
What the article doesn't mention is how cheap printers are. $50 for a printer/scanner combo is really cheap, inkjet printers are high-precision machines and paper is finicky. Notice how you don't find cheap knockoff printers on AliExpress, like they do with most consumer electronics, they just can't compete. You can find knockoff cartridges though.
Printer manufacturers are not fundamentally evil, they just have a business model that rely on expensive ink. Make it so that they can't use that business model anymore and printers will become much more expensive (like the "ecotank" line). Maybe it is a good thing, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. 3rd party cartridges for cheap printers are a hack, it only works when it is not widespread enough so that printer manufacturers can still make profit thanks to those who buy the overpriced ink.
This is innumerate. HP made 53.72 billion in revenue in FY23. Eyeballing the executive compensation list[1], total executive compensation is maybe $50M. That means if the executives decided to work for free AND 100% of the savings went to customers (as opposed than shareholders, which seems more likely), that'd only drop prices by 0.1%.
In my later school years, when I had semi-regular need for printing things in colour, I took to drilling holes in the inkjet cartridges and refilling them with cheap ink using syringes.
Which worked out to about £5 for the syringes, £5 for 400 ml of CMYK ink, and my dad already had a power drill—which was equivalent to about £104-worth of black ink cartridges, and about £312-worth of colour ink cartridges. (Now it would be about £160 of black and £480 of colour).
It only took 15-to-30-minutes to refill both cartridges, including drilling the holes.
Some printer manufacturers have implemented DRM for ink to prevent this kind of thing.
Psychologically, I think it is people consumers feel "stuck" with a printer once they purchase it, and the cost of ink is bad but not bad enough to precipitate a switch. I also wonder how many people dont want to rock the boat on an IT configuration that is working (certainly the case for my mom!)
Makes me wonder why thermal US Letter sized printers are not more popular? There are some portable ones I can find at quick glance but not many desktop versions. Thermal printers do not require ink and most things you print are in black and white anyway.
Are there downsides to thermal printers I don't know about?
What I don't understand is why we don't see Chinese manufacturers disrupt the market with cheap knockoff of printers. That should be quite easy for them and give good rentability.
Probably a lot easier than 3d printer knockoffs or smartphone that are still commons.
I'm using a Epson L120 (EcoTank which are refillable) as my home printer. The black ink is dirt cheap and you can buy it everywhere. Good color inks are more expensive, but if you don't use it for photo printing but simple color illustrations, they are more than fine.
I bought an Epson EcoTank five years ago and am very happy with it. The ink is dirt cheap.
The only downside is that you have to print something every 2-3 months, otherwise the quality degrades noticeably for the next few printouts. But after that it has always returned to normal quality for me.
Because there’s about as much competition in printer ink as there is in printers or mobile phones or display advertising vendors or web browser engines or fucking anything.
Enshittified passively (on paper) owned by State Street (actively managed behind closed doors in reality, look it up) modern terrible-tastic McKinsey certified fuck the consumer is just how we do now.
The page isn't very convincing. Sure, the low competition and DRM makes it likely more expensive than need be, but there are actually competitors and they aren't that much cheaper. Are the compounds that make up printer ink, to give it the right fluidity or whatnot, perhaps simply fairly expensive?
Taking old cartridge (with the right chips and everything) and topping it up from a syringe (they hold only a few ml anyway), so you don't have to break anything, can't be expensive or hard to do if the ink itself wasn't expensive. Everyone should want to get in on this business model. Since the page doesn't say anything about the actual cost price, I wonder if it isn't so lucrative as they make it seem
> Taking old cartridge (with the right chips and everything) and topping it up from a syringe (they hold only a few ml anyway), so you don't have to break anything, can't be expensive or hard to do if the ink itself wasn't expensive. Everyone should want to get in on this business model. Since the page doesn't say anything about the actual cost price, I wonder if it isn't so lucrative as they make it seem
If you mean setting up a business refilling other peoples' empty cartridges, this was briefly a thing when people still wanted to print things in color, and therefore wanted inkjet printers. It wouldn't be a standalone business, but an additional service at copy shops, computer stores, and sometimes cell phone shops (the sketchy-ish independent kind). When everyone has a color screen in their pocket all the time, there is little demand for this.
Also, the means to do this are very very cheap and the process requires no special skill. You can buy refill kits with the syringes and enough ink for dozens of cartridges for less significantly less than the cost of a single cartridge. If you're interested in cheaping out on printer cartridges, it makes more sense to just buy one of these. A service that requires $20 worth of capital and no skill is never going to be the basis of a lucrative business.
Things cost what people will pay for them. You use various techniques to figure out whatever the maximum price of a product or service will be, and you maximize that number.
Any and every tactic and strategy that isn't explicitly illegal is part of the toolkit put to this end. If it's illegal, but the fines cost less than the profit, it'll be used.
Things like principles and dignity and ethics are fluff for ad campaigns or players too small to matter.
Once past a certain threshold of size and age and complexity, publicly traded corporations enter an ecosystem utterly divorced from things like cost and value, they start playing with perceptions and mass psychology, with "what can we get away with" instead of "how can we be the best product in the market".
Consolidations and mergers and acquisitions make giant, soulless bureaucratic blobs out of companies that effectively lack any meaningful identity. What's the effective difference between Pepsi and Coke? Brother and HP? Samsung and Apple?
Any cable company or ISP? Any email provider?
The modern marketplace has been overcome by robber baron corporations and colluding nonhuman agents utilizing implicit rules and arbitraging the human rights differentials at every effective level. They're enabled by a sub-24 hour news cycle and the phenomena that allows outrageous things to happen with such incredible frequency that unless you truly bungle messaging and meme yourself into a Bud Light or Jaguar type situation, you can get away with anything.
The ecosystem of giant corporations that enable enterprise level products allow these companies to economically detach from the humans who actually use the products, while still dictating arbitrary prices and inflicting shitty service and product quality on consumers with no effective pricing dynamics.
You can't break into the printing "market" because they already have regulatory capture via IP and case law supporting their respective moats, and they have all the benefits of vertical integration and supply chains. You'll be acquired or litigated out of existence if you present any sort of meaningful threat to any aspect of these businesses.
So they jack the price of ink up to the maximum that they can get away with. Despite no increase in supply costs, no increase in value to the end user, the rate of increase will continue to rise until one or more enterprise customers get bothered enough to complain, and the contract will get renegotiated. Government contracts and deals with other massive bureaucracies are preferred, because the inertia means years of guaranteed income, often contractually inflated by contingencies like mandatory renegotiations and inflation hikes to the seller's advantage.
But hey, it's a global free market where anyone can sell amazing new inventions and get a commensurate return on the value they bring to the world!
[+] [-] jasode|1 year ago|reply
I realize that style of writing appeals to the "us vs them" mentality but I'd rather read about the underlying economics and finances.
The inkjet printer manufacturers are using a "razor and blades" business model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_and_blades_model
The blog's paragraph could have also mentioned that aspect and as a bonus, also educated readers enough to generalize the business practice and later "pattern match" on similar scenarios such as "cheap mobile phones" that are locked down with 2 year contracts. I.e. "teach a man to fish ... yada yada"
[+] [-] krisoft|1 year ago|reply
But this is the underlying economics and finances.
They can use a "razor and blades" business model because of all the things mentioned in the text you quoted. If they didn't do those things I could just order from amazon a cheap ink for their cheap printers from a rival and they would either go bankrupt or need to sell printers closer to what they make them for. But you can't because they made it illegal for the rivals to create those cheap ink cartridges.
In fact talking about "Razor and blades model" obscures this fact, not illuminates it.
[+] [-] dh2022|1 year ago|reply
What printer companies are doing is user hostile, not user friendly.
[+] [-] PittleyDunkin|1 year ago|reply
Economics and finances are inherently simply a different way of stating "us vs them". Just because the predatory behavior is studied in business school doesn't make it less predatory. Same with finance.
[+] [-] rsynnott|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] the_snooze|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] johnea|1 year ago|reply
Do they want to make more money, or less money? hmm...
The answer to why it's so expensive (applies to pretty much everything, not just printer ink) is: Because it can be.
Price and cost have almost nothing to do with one another. The manufacturer will charge as much as they can make people pay.
I mean, if HP shareholders weren't going to reap returns, why would people ever print anything to start with?
[+] [-] GordonAShumway|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] criddell|1 year ago|reply
https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mf...
[+] [-] cojo|1 year ago|reply
Took some research and timing but couldn’t be happier with no longer having to worry about ink clogging / going bad if I haven’t printed for a while.
Toner cartridges aren’t exactly cheap, but they will print a ton of pages, and they take way longer to go bad from what I’ve experienced so far…
[+] [-] pjmlp|1 year ago|reply
Doesn't matter if they happen to print longer, most folks care about the money on the spot.
[+] [-] monkmartinez|1 year ago|reply
Practical, reliable, affordable and just works technology; The amazing Brother HL-L2320D printer. I can't remember the last time I bought toner. The thing just keeps on printing. I think they make a wireless version, but I can't be bothered to change something that just works the way this printer has. We have fancy printers at work that are also Laser based and they are not as reliable the printer sitting next to me.
[+] [-] TuringNYC|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] TrackerFF|1 year ago|reply
Being the "IT guy" among family/friends/colleagues, 9 out of 10 times that's the case. Someone asks me if I can help them with their printer, they bought it 1-3 years ago, they've barely used it, but need new ink cartridge.
It's always the same printers. They saw one on sale for $40 or whatever at some big box store, a bought it.
[+] [-] lucasoshiro|1 year ago|reply
To be honest, nowadays I would prefer ink tank, as their extra cost (here) are smaller than the price of the cartridges that will need to be bought in the next years. And they are cheaper than the cheapest laser printers sold here.
[+] [-] lizknope|1 year ago|reply
I bought a B&W brother laser printer in 2015 and loved it. I had a cheap $80 inkjet and while it worked fine I printed so rarely that my ink cartridge would dry out.
The original brother toner cartridge lasted me 4 years so I'm happy just because of that.
I ended up giving that to my parents and got a brother color laser printer. It's nice for documents but inkjets are superior for photo printing.
But for the last 10-15 years I can upload photos to the Walgreens a mile away and get them in less than an hour on real photo paper and don't have to worry about them fading like a lot of inkjets.
[+] [-] paxys|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wrp|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] RogueToaster|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] xgyvvfb|1 year ago|reply
Because inkjets print prettier pictures, are more versatile, don't have long start up times, don't generate indoor ozone.
There are professional inkjets available that are more respectful of your right to buy cheap supplies than even brother - specifically I can pour bottled ink into printers of at least two manufacturers.
And (professional) modern inkjets keep up with print speed.
[+] [-] VoodooJuJu|1 year ago|reply
- laser toner is bad for your health
- laser has a larger upfront cost
[+] [-] grujicd|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] smnrg|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] edb_123|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] arethuza|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] not_your_vase|1 year ago|reply
What I mind is, that because I use it so rarely, that damn expensive cartridge dries up every 2 or so years, after printing maybe like 30 pages. That's what kills me. That's one thing that it's more expensive than gold, but it has awful quality.
"Funny" thing is, I used to have a Xerox laser printer years ago. The toner dried stopped working in it also if it wasn't used for months. The main difference was that the toner cost 3 or 4 times the price of an inkjet cartridge.
Fuck printers.
[+] [-] pandemic_region|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sly010|1 year ago|reply
There are other issues of course, I am not trying to give them slack here. If you don't use self cleaning once a week, the printer head clogs and you have to replace it anyway. If you use self cleaning too much, the waste ink reservoir fills up and your whole printer is toast unless you reset the firmware somehow. But there is a whole community for those kind of things.
[+] [-] rvnx|1 year ago|reply
You get the glucose meter for free (or almost), but you have to pay for the consumables (the strips and lancets), and get locked there.
Strips which are only compatible to specific models within the same brand offering.
[+] [-] GuB-42|1 year ago|reply
Printer manufacturers are not fundamentally evil, they just have a business model that rely on expensive ink. Make it so that they can't use that business model anymore and printers will become much more expensive (like the "ecotank" line). Maybe it is a good thing, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. 3rd party cartridges for cheap printers are a hack, it only works when it is not widespread enough so that printer manufacturers can still make profit thanks to those who buy the overpriced ink.
[+] [-] lenerdenator|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gruez|1 year ago|reply
[1] https://simplywall.st/stocks/us/tech/nyse-hpq/hp/management
[+] [-] Just_Harry|1 year ago|reply
Which worked out to about £5 for the syringes, £5 for 400 ml of CMYK ink, and my dad already had a power drill—which was equivalent to about £104-worth of black ink cartridges, and about £312-worth of colour ink cartridges. (Now it would be about £160 of black and £480 of colour). It only took 15-to-30-minutes to refill both cartridges, including drilling the holes.
Some printer manufacturers have implemented DRM for ink to prevent this kind of thing.
[+] [-] criddell|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] TuringNYC|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 65|1 year ago|reply
Are there downsides to thermal printers I don't know about?
[+] [-] greatgib|1 year ago|reply
Probably a lot easier than 3d printer knockoffs or smartphone that are still commons.
[+] [-] sinuhe69|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] CommonGuy|1 year ago|reply
The only downside is that you have to print something every 2-3 months, otherwise the quality degrades noticeably for the next few printouts. But after that it has always returned to normal quality for me.
[+] [-] RecycledEle|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] RecycledEle|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ppp999|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] benreesman|1 year ago|reply
Enshittified passively (on paper) owned by State Street (actively managed behind closed doors in reality, look it up) modern terrible-tastic McKinsey certified fuck the consumer is just how we do now.
[+] [-] _aavaa_|1 year ago|reply
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-busine...
[+] [-] lucb1e|1 year ago|reply
Taking old cartridge (with the right chips and everything) and topping it up from a syringe (they hold only a few ml anyway), so you don't have to break anything, can't be expensive or hard to do if the ink itself wasn't expensive. Everyone should want to get in on this business model. Since the page doesn't say anything about the actual cost price, I wonder if it isn't so lucrative as they make it seem
[+] [-] ElevenLathe|1 year ago|reply
If you mean setting up a business refilling other peoples' empty cartridges, this was briefly a thing when people still wanted to print things in color, and therefore wanted inkjet printers. It wouldn't be a standalone business, but an additional service at copy shops, computer stores, and sometimes cell phone shops (the sketchy-ish independent kind). When everyone has a color screen in their pocket all the time, there is little demand for this.
Also, the means to do this are very very cheap and the process requires no special skill. You can buy refill kits with the syringes and enough ink for dozens of cartridges for less significantly less than the cost of a single cartridge. If you're interested in cheaping out on printer cartridges, it makes more sense to just buy one of these. A service that requires $20 worth of capital and no skill is never going to be the basis of a lucrative business.
[+] [-] observationist|1 year ago|reply
Any and every tactic and strategy that isn't explicitly illegal is part of the toolkit put to this end. If it's illegal, but the fines cost less than the profit, it'll be used.
Things like principles and dignity and ethics are fluff for ad campaigns or players too small to matter.
Once past a certain threshold of size and age and complexity, publicly traded corporations enter an ecosystem utterly divorced from things like cost and value, they start playing with perceptions and mass psychology, with "what can we get away with" instead of "how can we be the best product in the market".
Consolidations and mergers and acquisitions make giant, soulless bureaucratic blobs out of companies that effectively lack any meaningful identity. What's the effective difference between Pepsi and Coke? Brother and HP? Samsung and Apple?
Any cable company or ISP? Any email provider?
The modern marketplace has been overcome by robber baron corporations and colluding nonhuman agents utilizing implicit rules and arbitraging the human rights differentials at every effective level. They're enabled by a sub-24 hour news cycle and the phenomena that allows outrageous things to happen with such incredible frequency that unless you truly bungle messaging and meme yourself into a Bud Light or Jaguar type situation, you can get away with anything.
The ecosystem of giant corporations that enable enterprise level products allow these companies to economically detach from the humans who actually use the products, while still dictating arbitrary prices and inflicting shitty service and product quality on consumers with no effective pricing dynamics.
You can't break into the printing "market" because they already have regulatory capture via IP and case law supporting their respective moats, and they have all the benefits of vertical integration and supply chains. You'll be acquired or litigated out of existence if you present any sort of meaningful threat to any aspect of these businesses.
So they jack the price of ink up to the maximum that they can get away with. Despite no increase in supply costs, no increase in value to the end user, the rate of increase will continue to rise until one or more enterprise customers get bothered enough to complain, and the contract will get renegotiated. Government contracts and deals with other massive bureaucracies are preferred, because the inertia means years of guaranteed income, often contractually inflated by contingencies like mandatory renegotiations and inflation hikes to the seller's advantage.
But hey, it's a global free market where anyone can sell amazing new inventions and get a commensurate return on the value they bring to the world!
[+] [-] itsanaccount|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]