>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.
Well, you could point to the fact that there are alternatives to using "razor and blades". You can buy straight razors and re-sharpen them yourself. You can buy safety razors, which are technically still the "razor and blades model", but aren't based on proprietary designs, and just accept the added inconvenience that comes with.
And yet, still, many people choose to use "razor and blades" products because it's more faster and more convenient and requires less effort and lower buy-in cost than the alternatives.
The “razor and blades” pricing is (as the market demonstrates) a dominant strategy. The other pricing strategy (cost-plus) is preferable for the customers printing a lot, not for customers who print little. Then add some customer myopia: I need a cheap printer, where cheap is initial out of pocket, not total cost of ownership. And there you have it: all suppliers ‘must’ follow the dominant pricing strategy because the myopic customer demands it. The twice as expensive printer up front just won’t get store space.
Brother might be (or, was?) somewhat of an outlier for the informed consumer. But who buys a Brother right? HP and Canon dominate the market.
General point is that individual suppliers in a multi supplier market have to take the dominant pricing strategy as a given, or differentiate along other axis.
... which is exactly "Razor and blades model", not sure whats your problem with this apt comparison.
People would like to buy as cheap as possible. That's unfortunately incompatible with printers business model (marketing + cheap initial printer + necessary sales later to bring in the actual profits). As you mention they would go bankrupt soon if this is disrupted, and end users won't win long term in such scenario.
So I don't really get the issue, its so hard to grok that you pay for continuous package? Why would companies building ecosystem let anybody who bankrupts them in? Apple also fights tooth and nail to keep their app store one and only monopoly. Or go elsewhere, ie I have Brother printer, not stellar but good enough, official cartridge costs 1/2 to 1/3 of cost of whole new printer. Seems very reasonable to me and I am happy to pay those 50 bucks once every year or two.
I also buy official batteries when replacing in say phone, absolutely 0 point testing stuff thats marginally cheaper and of famous 'chinese quality'. I am old enough and rich enough to understand that I am definitely not rich enough to buy cheap junk just and exactly because its cheap.
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.
Which, ironically, creates economics that encourage people to buy printers and then not use them (much).
An industry built around selling you things you will then not want to use is an industry with big problems. It works for razor blades because we need to shave regardless -- yes, you could chose to have a beard, but short of that, demand is constant.
For printing, that just isn't true. And I print much less than I once did.
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.
At home I have a laser Brother from around 2000s that i rescued from the dumpster, the last time I needed it it had spent probably 5 years untouched in the garage, plugged it in and printed away without problems, no clogs, no firmware updates, no 2gb of install packages just a driver, no BS.
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.
It's been my situation, I have had my Brother laser printer for... more than 8 years and I still run on the toner that was delivered with the printer ! Yellow ran low a few years ago, and the printer wouldn't print anymore, so I select "print black & white", and the printer happily keeps working using the black toner only :)
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.
In which case you _particularly_ want laser, because laser printers will keep working for that sort of duty cycle, whereas if not used semi-regularly, most ink cartridges will need replacing even if not empty.
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.
I think this shows the problem though.
When I was younger you had to save for a printer for a considerate amount of time, the equivalent of hundreds of dollars was normal.
Now there are customers that think they can buy a printer for the equivalent of a round of beer, and when that doesn't work out as expected it's only the evil companies.
More often than not the consumer goes for the cheapest, and that's what they get and the company has to make the profit elsewhere.
I appreciate that with all the legal wrangling and anti-competitive behaviour the supplier companies don't paint a very attractive picture, but the consumer decisions have made the bed for this market as well.
But if you are only printing occasionally why not go to FedEx and print your document there?
I've chosen to have Black and White only at home, and go to FedEx for my color pages. I do black and white text often enough that it's worth it. But I really don't do color enough to warrant a printer (or upgrading to a more expensive color printer even)
The problem I have with cheap inkjets for occasional use is that they tend to stop working after just 1-3 years. A lot of people say it's because the ink dries up and clogs up the works if you don't print regularly. I'm not sure if that's an accurate explanation, and maybe I'm just unlucky, but reliability is the only real complaint I have about inkjets.
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.
Colour laser printers whilst being more expensive, produce better quality output for colour documents than ink does in my opinion. You don't get the horizontal lines that you sometimes get with inkjets where the ink overlaps a bit.
However, inkjets are probably better for printing photos, but I'd recommend just using a photo printing service if that's what you're after (assuming that they're not private photos that you don't want to share).
Regarding Linux and printers, I use Fedora as my daily driver, and I have a cheap HP OfficeJet printer from 2016, and I'm amazed by how well it "just works" with both printing from any application and scanning with the GNOME Document Scanner application. My wife actually has more issues printing from her Windows 10 machine (e.g. we periodically have to go through the Windows settings to "add printer" again) and scanning with the actual HP software.
I've used Linux on and off since 2005, and every time I've come back to Linux I've been impressed with the progress made on things like this.
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.
Colour photos are probably better on inkjets, but colour documents look great from my Brother colour laser. Images come out really well, but they're not glossy like you might want for a photo.
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?
I think the biggest exposure would come from handling/replacing the toner cartridges. Make sure that you keep them closed and don't shake them around (e.g. to distribute the toner within).
I think they're also not great for releasing gases and certainly my one does have a chemical smell when printing, so I just make sure that I'm in a different room for doing a large print (it helps that the printer is network connected).
Less than it used to be, but yes. Though it applies to printing and maintenance, and the whole point of buying a laser printer for home is that it can sit still for months at a time.
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.
Is this the same for large format printers? Because they even have region locking.
A friend bought his Epson used from Germany for around €7500. During COVID times he needed more ink, but his supplier said it would be a month or two due to supply chain issues.
He borrowed a cartridge from a friend who had the correct colour, but his printer wouldn't recognize as it, as our part of Europe is a different region to Germany (ink is the same price in both).
He even spoke to unofficial technicians to see if they could unlock it, but the only solution would be replacing the motherboard to change the region.
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%.
Okay, then planned retirement communities in expensive-to-insure parts of Florida paid for by Baby Boomers' retirement and pension funds aren't going to pay for themselves.
Either way, we have externalities between the people actually making the ink cartridge and the people buying the ink cartridge that drastically inflate the price.
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.
Readit News
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"
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.
And yet, still, many people choose to use "razor and blades" products because it's more faster and more convenient and requires less effort and lower buy-in cost than the alternatives.
The “razor and blades” pricing is (as the market demonstrates) a dominant strategy. The other pricing strategy (cost-plus) is preferable for the customers printing a lot, not for customers who print little. Then add some customer myopia: I need a cheap printer, where cheap is initial out of pocket, not total cost of ownership. And there you have it: all suppliers ‘must’ follow the dominant pricing strategy because the myopic customer demands it. The twice as expensive printer up front just won’t get store space.
Brother might be (or, was?) somewhat of an outlier for the informed consumer. But who buys a Brother right? HP and Canon dominate the market.
General point is that individual suppliers in a multi supplier market have to take the dominant pricing strategy as a given, or differentiate along other axis.
Deleted Comment
People would like to buy as cheap as possible. That's unfortunately incompatible with printers business model (marketing + cheap initial printer + necessary sales later to bring in the actual profits). As you mention they would go bankrupt soon if this is disrupted, and end users won't win long term in such scenario.
So I don't really get the issue, its so hard to grok that you pay for continuous package? Why would companies building ecosystem let anybody who bankrupts them in? Apple also fights tooth and nail to keep their app store one and only monopoly. Or go elsewhere, ie I have Brother printer, not stellar but good enough, official cartridge costs 1/2 to 1/3 of cost of whole new printer. Seems very reasonable to me and I am happy to pay those 50 bucks once every year or two.
I also buy official batteries when replacing in say phone, absolutely 0 point testing stuff thats marginally cheaper and of famous 'chinese quality'. I am old enough and rich enough to understand that I am definitely not rich enough to buy cheap junk just and exactly because its cheap.
What printer companies are doing is user hostile, not user friendly.
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.
An industry built around selling you things you will then not want to use is an industry with big problems. It works for razor blades because we need to shave regardless -- yes, you could chose to have a beard, but short of that, demand is constant.
For printing, that just isn't true. And I print much less than I once did.
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?
https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mf...
However, I've not had any issue with third party toner in my Brother DCP colour laser printer and haven't heard of any such issues.
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…
Doesn't matter if they happen to print longer, most folks care about the money on the spot.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Now there are customers that think they can buy a printer for the equivalent of a round of beer, and when that doesn't work out as expected it's only the evil companies.
More often than not the consumer goes for the cheapest, and that's what they get and the company has to make the profit elsewhere.
I appreciate that with all the legal wrangling and anti-competitive behaviour the supplier companies don't paint a very attractive picture, but the consumer decisions have made the bed for this market as well.
I've chosen to have Black and White only at home, and go to FedEx for my color pages. I do black and white text often enough that it's worth it. But I really don't do color enough to warrant a printer (or upgrading to a more expensive color printer even)
However, inkjets are probably better for printing photos, but I'd recommend just using a photo printing service if that's what you're after (assuming that they're not private photos that you don't want to share).
I've used Linux on and off since 2005, and every time I've come back to Linux I've been impressed with the progress made on things like this.
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.
- laser toner is bad for your health
- laser has a larger upfront cost
I think they're also not great for releasing gases and certainly my one does have a chemical smell when printing, so I just make sure that I'm in a different room for doing a large print (it helps that the printer is network connected).
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.
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.
Canon at least was selling individual ink tanks (by the color, no integrated head) for their BubbleJet printers way back in the 90s.
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.
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.
A friend bought his Epson used from Germany for around €7500. During COVID times he needed more ink, but his supplier said it would be a month or two due to supply chain issues.
He borrowed a cartridge from a friend who had the correct colour, but his printer wouldn't recognize as it, as our part of Europe is a different region to Germany (ink is the same price in both).
He even spoke to unofficial technicians to see if they could unlock it, but the only solution would be replacing the motherboard to change the region.
[1] https://simplywall.st/stocks/us/tech/nyse-hpq/hp/management
Either way, we have externalities between the people actually making the ink cartridge and the people buying the ink cartridge that drastically inflate the price.
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.