a gallon of printer ink can cost you
$12,000 when in cartridge form it's more
expensive than vintage champagne and
even human blood in fact it can be
cheaper to buy an entire printer than it
is to purchase new ink cartridges so why
is printer ink so expensive let's start
with the first printers no not that far
no come on there we go
inkjet printers were first developed in
the 1960s and early computer inks were
made from food dye and water because of
this they would fade after a few months
so companies had to develop a dive it
gave permanent photographic quality in
1988 hewlett packard achieved just that
with the first mass-market
inkjet printer which sold for about a
thousand dollars but a lot has changed
since then today you can buy a brand new
printer for around $35 but there's a
catch when the ink runs out in one of
these printers you need to buy specific
cartridges and these cartridges are
expensive so why are the cartridges so
pricey are that simple greed and an
outdated razor and blades model this is
David Cornett he's the former editor of
the recycler and has been lobbying for
change in the print drink industry for
years they sell the printers chip they
saw the consumables very at a very
expensive price and basically it's a
formula the chief of the printer the
more expensive the consumables once you
bought a printer that uses cartridges
you're trapped in a cycle you have no
choice but to buy them or throw away
your printer as a printer is typically a
one-time purchase companies don't mind
selling them at a loss and making the
money back through cartridge sales the
HP Envy for 520 all-in-one printer for
example sells for $70 but it estimated
to cost a hundred and twenty to
manufacture the loss they make on
printers means that companies need to
sell ink cartridges to make a profit and
this model has led to a battleground
between printer manufacturers and
third-party ink suppliers the companies
do everything they can to keep you
buying official ink cartridges
manufacturers install microchips into
their cartridges and frequently issue
firmware updates to prevent the use of
third-party ink which can be more
affordable last year almost 900 firmware
upgrades were issued by just nine
printer manufacturers so that's almost
three a day I mean that's just like
either absolutely incompetence because
you've got to do it so much or it is a
definite stealth tactic to control the
market printer companies attribute the
high costs of the research and
development that goes into perfecting
printer ink the materials they use
however cost very little
manufacturing cost of ink is between 20
and 40 euros ELISA and a lot of the ink
you buy never even gets used for
printing according to a 2018 test by
Consumer Reports more than half the ink
you buy could end up lost in maintenance
cycles for cleaning the print heads and
printers that use multiple color ink
cartridges also stopped working as soon
as one color runs out even if the other
colors are still full these days you're
getting even less for your money while
the cartridges themselves are the same
size and price they often contain far
less ink inside than they used to the
ink in many manufacturers cartridges has
shrunk from 20 mil to around 5 mil over
the past few years without any reduction
in price the original size 20 mil
cartridges are often still on sale but
are often sold as extra large cartridges
for even more money and some new
cartridges can have as little as 3
milliliters of ink inside some companies
have now even started ink subscriptions
deactivating your cartridges remotely if
you print more than your allocated pages
laser printers offer a lower cost
alternative to inkjet but produce a
lower quality printed image the real
solution for many though would be to
offer more efficient ink cartridges this
product you know can be better
engineered
they could Lea's with the aftermarket 2
to actually you know find a solution
that works for everybody because yeah
this
ultimately this is bad for the consumer
because it's overpriced and expensive
and it's bad for the environment because
it doesn't it doesn't need to be made
that way we reached out to Cannon and HP
for comment
HP replied with this statement
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