A VP at HP once told me they make 3/4 of their profits from selling inks (I am sure he exaggerated but still).
You can buy original laserjet cartridges for $150 or third party cartridges for $40-60 (or $25 if you are happy with noname Chinese cartridges). So there is big money involved.
That number could make sense if 'toner' counts as ink. And TBF, a lot of the nice multifunction printers of the 2000s were sold at a pretty decent loss.
> (or $25 if you are happy with noname Chinese cartridges).
Okay so I'm not one of those '3rd party evil' people. But speaking as someone who has had to repair multiple large format Inkjet and Laser printers, I would have at least a few concerns about Hazmat; even first party toner is pretty nasty stuff.
When a set of 4 toner cartridges is $800 from HP for a $600 printer and the high-quality, I’ve used before, 3rd party toners are $120 for the set, let’s just say that HP won’t be getting that purchase.
What's weird to me is big enough offices tend to switch to a subscription paid by the page, where the maker is engaged in doing reasonably whatever it takes (ink replacement, parts replacement etc.) to keep the machine printing.
I heard of such arrangements with Canon, I heard for Xerox, and it seemed to be pretty standard. As long as there was no manipulation errors the company had no need to care about durability, maintenance etc.
Greed should be the downfall of their printer business. Using technical measures to artificially limit consumer choice should be illegal.
In Canada we have 123ink.ca. For my Brother printer a set of genuine high yield cartridges is $520. A completely generic set is $105. However, they also have their own (Moustache) branded set that's $130.
I suspect their branded version is just a different sticker on the generic, but I buy the branded version. If they're willing to stamp their name on it and stand behind it that's worth $25 (+24%) to me. A brand name isn't worth $415 (+495%) though.
These companies have ignored the risk of cheating their customers for a long time and now that customers are getting more informed the same companies think they should be able to force customers keep buying their garbage. No thanks. Their downfall should be swift and spectacular (in my dreams -lol).
You can buy original laserjet cartridges for $150 or third party cartridges for $40-60 (or $25 if you are happy with noname Chinese cartridges). So there is big money involved.