[HN Gopher] It's cheaper to buy a new printer every month
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It's cheaper to buy a new printer every month
Author : foxfired
Score : 23 points
Date : 2025-12-10 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
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| treadmill wrote:
| There is probably a lot less ink in the included cartridges. They
| always get you. Don't print.
| functionmouse wrote:
| How about ink tank printers?
| GuestFAUniverse wrote:
| That would be to consequent.
| ncruces wrote:
| They are more expensive. Because the lock-in isn't as tight.
|
| I still like them because, ironically, for sporadic printing,
| they're more resilient than many ink cartridges.
|
| So far, I haven't experienced any clogging (dried up ink in
| the print heads) or the printer resorting to ink consuming
| processes every time it's turned on after not having been
| used for a couple of weeks.
|
| This is after some years of usage where I've refilled the
| tanks once.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| Not great. They still clog, the printer still wastes a _ton_
| of ink on cleaning or adjustment or whatever. Last time I had
| one I woke up one day to find that all of the yellow ink was
| gone. Several ounces of ink presumably dumped into a sponge
| inside the printer. I chucked the whole damn mess in the
| trash and bought a Brother laser printer.
| pedrozieg wrote:
| The wild part is that this isn't really a pricing mistake, it's
| the business model. That $65 Canon isn't "a printer", it's a
| subsidized acquisition channel for a customer who will buy OEM
| ink at a huge margin or sign up for some kind of recurring refill
| program later. Accounting is fine eating some or all of the
| printer cost if the average buyer turns into years of cartridge
| revenue.
|
| If you buy a new printer every time you run low on ink, you're
| basically arbitraging that CAC line item. On paper it can be a
| "life hack" as long as only a few people do it and you ignore the
| e-waste and friction. If it ever became common, the easy knobs
| for the manufacturer are obvious: even smaller starter carts,
| more lock-in, more activation hoops, and less of the subsidy that
| makes this trick work in the first place.
| euroderf wrote:
| This is where Brother laser printers are/were supposed to be
| superior. Affordable ink cartridges, refillable, good capacity,
| no DRM.
|
| But I upgraded the printer driver some months ago (on macOS)
| and Hey, Presto! No more functioning printer.
| zkmon wrote:
| I also thought of binning it and buy another. But I found that
| Chinese made cartridges are much cheaper on amazon. You get 3
| sets (12 pieces) in one pack and they last fairly longer.
| supportengineer wrote:
| Couldn't you donate a gently used printer and get a tax
| deduction?
| etempleton wrote:
| I have used the same printer since 2019 and haven't changed the
| toner once. HP Neverstop.
| johngalt wrote:
| FYI, the included cartridges in a new printer are typically a
| 'low capacity' type. This has been true for 20+ years. You may
| find yourself both spending a large amount of money, and
| generating a significant amount of e-waste if you pursue this
| strategy.
|
| It is important to check consumable cost when buying a printer.
| They aren't all the same in this regard.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Sure, but a lot of ink cartridges sold separately are also low
| capacity now.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| Pro tip: Sometimes refurbished printers have the actual full
| cartridge. I once bought a refurbished Xerox laser printer and
| used it for 12+ years and still going (I moved countries and
| couldn't take it with me).
| yesitcan wrote:
| Isn't that a pack of 5? So divide the ink price by 5. Much lower
| than the printer.
| kop316 wrote:
| Here's the page:
| https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/352475/Canon-PGI-280X...
|
| It's honestly hard to tell, but I think the pack of 5 is for
| the set, not 5 of each.
| savanaly wrote:
| The seeming paradox reminds me of a simlar flavor one: the fact
| that if you accidentally knock a hole in your drywall, it's
| cheaper to cover it with a flat screen TV than to pay someone to
| fix the hole.
| klooney wrote:
| Cost disease gone wild
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Even cheaper to buy a small tub of putty and a putty knife if
| you don't have one.
| dardeaup wrote:
| That only works for really small holes.
| savanaly wrote:
| I was picturing more like a sledgehammer size hole.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| I suppose I don't know what kind of antics you get up to
| where that's an accident, but in any case you could maybe
| use those patch things, or you can probably buy a bit of
| new drywall, cut an even shape around the hole and use that
| as a template to cut your new drywall, insert it, and use
| putty to clean up the edges. Still only like $20-30 total.
| starlust2 wrote:
| Fixing the hole is easy. Few more steps than you
| described, but still easy. Texturing less so.
| copperx wrote:
| Inkjets are a no go if you're printing any significant amount of
| pages or if you're only printing sporadically. That's like 99% of
| their use case. The other 1% is photo printing, which I see a bit
| pointless when you can get a real photographic, not ink, print
| for a few cents.
| thaack wrote:
| The floor on refurbished laser printers is about $100 on Amazon
| and remanufactured toner cartridges are dirt cheap often times
| less than $15 for 2000-6000 pages.
|
| This is the way. There is no reason to buy ink based anymore.
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