Small things make me happy

[erudito]

Friday before the January long weekend, bought a new Canon™ bubble-jet printer for slightly more than a colour printer cartridge cost for my HP™ bubble-jet and whose own cartridges (both colour and black, low use versions) together cost more than a black cartridge but less than a colour cartridge for my old printer. While a triple back of the long

Comments

[kitling]

I think its kind of sad that it costs less to buy a new printer than a replacement print cartridge. I realise the printer makers sell the printers at a loss, because they make money on the cartridge sales.

But it still seems a very wasteful sort of consumerism to me...

We brought my kid sister a printer for her bday, I'm wondering if she'll buy replacement cartridges or the next model up...

Incentives

[erudito]

In a world of persistent (if low) inflation and unindexed capital gains and income taxes, income streams from regular sales are generally better than assets.

Add in the effects of Moore's law creating asset deflation due to expanding capacities and one ends up with ... printers which cost less than their cartridges.

It is just folk responding to clear incentives.

Re: Incentives

[catsidhe]

Well, that, and the cost of the ink is so outrageously inflated.

There is a graph of the price of various liquids per millilitre, and the result is somewhat surprising, even for the normally sufficiently cynical me.

Re: Incentives

[erudito]

But they're not selling ink, they're selling ink in their-printer-compatible-packaging. Ink is ink, a HP #45 cartridge is a much more precious item.

Or, to put it another way, they're selling the ability to keep their cheap printer functioning. You may buy the printer, but you only rent its ability to function.

Re: Incentives

[catsidhe]

Just like the MPAA/RIAA/Microsoft model of selling software/sound/video: You buy the media, but the right to the content may be revoked at any time.

Welcome to the future. *sigh*