I remember seeing a list of the most expensive substances, and printer ink was high up there. I’ve heard the claim that printers are underpriced and the manufacturers make up for it with the margins on ink, like with razorblades (though I myself have never bought blades separate from razors), but printers are still a fairly large fixed cost. Why doesn’t some company just sell ink to be used with printers?
August 15, 2010
August 15, 2010 at 11:22 pm
http://lasermonks.com/
August 15, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Printer ink is enforced through DRM in some cases.
August 16, 2010 at 1:40 am
Some people sell printer ink in bulk (stored in bottles). To use it you have to have a particular gadget that refills your cartridge for you. The cartridges themselves are patent protected (the patents are rigorously enforced by the printer manufacturers.
Still, some companies, even some retail stores that sell cartridges will refill your old ones, or sell you scavenged cartridges that have been refilled by the company.
August 16, 2010 at 10:06 am
The list you link to seems to be based on HP cartridges, which are far more expensive than cartridges for some printers. According to wikipedia,
“Some cartridges have incorporated the printer’s head (examples include HP, Dell, and Lexmark). The precision parts required generally make the cartridges more expensive, but the printers are cheaper since they don’t include the precision print head.”
If third party cartridges need to include the printer head as well, perhaps HP cartridges are already as cheap as they can be sold.
I would be interested in asking the same question about razorblades though. It seems to me there are cheaper blades than the popular brands, but they are of lower quality. Why no cheap(er) high quality blades?
August 16, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Thanks for the link, nazgulnarsil. Mysterious ways and all that.
I did not know that, gwern.
The monks support other printers, but perhaps they focus on HP, I didn’t check too closely.
Perhaps off-topic, but a while back some Mises/Lew Rockwell contributors expressed some heterodoxy on shaving.
Against modern razors.
Against shaving-cream. Toughen that skin up!
Against the above two.
August 18, 2010 at 7:58 pm
For many consumer-level printers, a full set of cartridges costs about the same as the printer’s retail price. That alone tells all you want to know about the business model.
Selling ink separately and refilling cartridges is a very big business. Obviously Canon or HP do not make their inks. They spec them and contract them out. In most instances, the company making the inks is obligated to not sell the same formulations to anyone else. But of course inks are not that impossible to hack and there are plenty of sources that make and sell pretty comparable stuff.
Like music business, printer manufacturers try to protect their business model with DRM-like chips embedded into ink cartridges. These are promptly defeated with “resetter” hardware. I own a printer that I bought 7 years ago for $120. That printer (ip4000R, discontinued), because of its features and ease of refilling, now goes for >$250 – even used. Printing rather large amount of papers and documents over the years, I only spent about $60 on inks and $55 on a new printhead (a given for any inkjet).
August 26, 2010 at 6:05 am
When I lived in China I used to buy printer ink in bottles, and recharge my cartridges with a kind of syringe. Cheaper, but can be messy.
I haven’t used shaving cream for several years (after reading either the article you linked to or a very similar one), and am doing fine; I just use warm water.