The Inkjet Conspiracy - Which is cheaper?
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Yes, it's true. Case in point (at the time of this writing), at walmart.com, one can purchase a Lexmark X3350 All-in-One Printer with four colors for $46.93 and $.97 shipping. On the very same page detailing the printer, the store lists accessories one can buy, such as the consumable ink cartridges. If one were to buy replacements for the cartridges that come packaged with the X3350, one color and one photo ink cartridge, the cost will be $45.70 (plus $5.94 shipping, combined).
Not counting any sales tax, buying a new printer would be $3.74 cheaper than replacing the ink alone. Of course, if you plan on printing in black, you can either use up your color cartridge (many printers combine colors to produce something resembling black) or purchase a separate black ink cartridge for $17.23. Interestingly, a twin pack of black ink costs $45.27, which is $10.81 more than the price of two individual cartridges... and here I always thought that buying in bulk was supposed to save money. Now this isn't about walmart.com. Fact is, the only site offering the printer for less, according to bestprice.com, was Amazon.
So, we have reached the pinnacle of consumerism, where purchasing a new item is cheaper than replacing its consumables. This is not at all unintentional on the part of the printer manufacturers. They know they can and do make more money off the consumables (ink and specialty papers) than on the initial product. They make even more money through some mostly legal but still underhanded tricks.
Tricks of the trade
Underhanded tricks? Oh yes. There are lawsuits to prove it. Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) was sued in various states between 1998 and 2003 for selling printers with ink cartridges that were only half-full. HP got out of those by saying they sold the printers with "economy" cartridges, though no one could buy any such economy cartridges in a store, only "premium" cartridges. They were sued again in Feb 2005 in California over alleged time-based ink cartridge termination, though no word has appeared since the lawsuit was filed.
Epson settled out of court over cartridges needing to be changed while there's still a significant amount of ink in them. Lexmark tried using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in December 2002 to prevent generic replacement toner cartridges from being made and used in their products (yes, that's for laser printers, and they were turned down in October 2004 and lost an appeal in February 2005, but the precedent can be applied to inkjets in future lawsuits). Let's start with the fact that printers are designed to waste ink.
Next: How ink is deliberately wasted >>
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