Ink Cartridges Are A Scam

Printer companies are ripping us off, and it's high time we did something about it. Join me in starting the revolution.

[digaolegal]

here in Brasil there is a whole underground market for modding printers with refillable cartidges and selling ink in bulk

[positivelysimful]

I got a low ink warning once; I was able to print 70 more pages.

[gavinhardison]

so this is why public schools are always stripped for cash

[timothyprice]

For years I've wondered why my Epson printer would run out of cyan or magenta when I print 99.9% black. Now I know. Thanks Austin. Oh, and I no longer have a printer and don't print anything anymore, except for my yearly auto registration, which I have printed at on office supply store for $2.

[markman]

Fun fact: many consumer printers have a print limit. After something like 100, 000 pages it will say “I’m broken!” And stop working.
I know because my dad printed postcards out for his business and hit this limit multiple times. He had a little piece of code that reset it and magically the printer was no longer broken...

[BlackScream]

when 3d printing is cheaper by both the printer price and the filament price.... smh im just gonna print my documents in plastic now

[whatdidyoudotomydrink]

I’d like to print this document
*yup*
It’s in black and white
*yup*
And since it’s in black and white, you don’t need colors to print it
*That makes sense to me*
Then print it
*Need magenta ink*

[spartan]

I've been working in an electronics repair shop for the last 8 years. Over this amount of time, inkjet printers have become the worst thing I've ever had to work on. Pretty quickly into my repair career I made the choice to stop working on them all together. Every single one of them is a complete nightmare to disassemble. And even if you are able to find the fault, chances are the only way to get a replacement part is to pull it from _another_ identical printer.

Laser printers on the other hand? Absolute dreams. Some of them are more difficult to take apart than others, and there is something to be said about the whole DRM on toner cartridges thing...but the nice thing about laser printers is they are _designed_ to be repaired. At least in my experience. Getting black lines while printing? There is probably some paper stuck to the fuser, or the fuser is dirty and needs to be cleaned. Paper getting stuck? It's probably the duplexer or the fuser. Not printing at all, just sending paper through? You guessed it, it's probably the fuser!

You know what's nice about most problems being the fuser? _THEY CAN EASILY BE REPLACED._ In every laser printer I've serviced, the fuser is contained in one easily removable module that can typically be purchased for anywhere from $30 to $100. Depends entirely on the model...but considering most fancy laser printers are anywhere from a few hundred to upwards of $1k, that's a price well worth paying to get it working again.

The other nice thing about laser printers? They have less issues overall. If you don't use an inkjet printer for 6 months, there is a very high chance it will just suck at printing when you end up using it. The ink gets all nasty, the print head gets all dirty, and you'll probably just have to buy a new printer. I have seen this happen so often that I'm convinced it is by design. Laser printers don't do this. That toner can sit in the cartridge for a year, you can never use the thing that whole time. And then when you go to use it, it just frickin prints. _AT WORST_ you might have to take the cartridge out and shake it a bit. But that's it.

I think what surprises me the most about inkjet printers is, the technology behind how they work is actually incredible. Considering how precise all of it has to be, I'm amazed that they even work to begin with. They really are fascinating pieces of technology. But they all SUCK because of greed. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[minecraftofficialaccount]

Just buy a Chinese sweatshop worker for super cheap and make them write all of your documents for you instead of printing them

[ScottHagene]

This makes me wanna go out there and start a printer company that isn't corrupt

[theunboxingexperience]

They never saw that coming: a clerk from the call center eventually becoming a famous youtuber to expose their business strategy and start a revolution.

[jimtekkit]

I just can't comprehend how such a wasteful environment-molesting industry has flown under the radar for so many years. You simply breathe in the direction of a color inkjet printer and it throws a message to replace the ink cartridges. Moving to laser printers with toner solves a lot of the breakdown headaches, but the toner cartridges are still supremely expensive and wasteful when discarded. I'm not a tree-hugger by any stretch but the printer industry really doesn't give a shit about the planet at all.

[visioneerone]

i am an IT Guy

anytime time i am asked "what printer should i get" my automatic response used to be "b&w laser"

they'd complain but i want color" then end up buying buy some shity officejet and $200 worth of ink

now I respond by simply emailing them a link to this video. end of discussion.

bless u, brother

[jamesdonnelly]

HPs business model: create a problem
sell the solution

[stefaniarivers]

When the ink “runs out” my mom just gives away the printer and buys a cheap one for $30 at Walmart. I used to think she was nuts until she showed me the ink prices 🤷‍♀️

[jamesgerboc]

One thing you missed is that if you try to save your ink and use it sparingly it either dries out or the printer automatically and routinely uses some ink to run a jet cleaning cycle.

[aniyahjbrown]

We could start a black market for ink cartridges that are sold at reasonable prices that have chips that tell you when your actually out of ink

[keys]

Printer with ink:$50
Printer ink:$69.99
I'll just buy a printer every time I actually run out of ink

[hazqier]

That moment when 3D printers are easier to setup and use than a normal printer.

[elpfan]

You can now buy an Eco Tank printer from Epson that is built with refillable reservoirs for ink. The printer costs $200 and the ink is very cheap. This is the way it should have been sold from day one.