Printer Ink Rip Off

But you’re not telling us what you purchased!
Other than a little noise, I’m delighted with my relatively new Canon all-in-one (my old Epson’s scanner died)–and, for a change, there are standardized cost-per-page numbers, thanks to a new (ISO?) standard. [In this case, 2.8 cents per page for typical 5%-coverage b&w printing 8 cents for business-document color.] There’s no question that some inkjet printers have extremely high cost-per-page.
As for water: Well, we were buying bottled stuff for drinking because they use chloramine here and it messes up the taste (and won’t settle out in the fridge). But now we’re buying reverse-osmosis purified water at a local outlet: $0.25 a gallon, which is a little cheaper than gasoline. (And doesn’t yield dozens and dozens of plastic bottles for recycling…)

I came to the conclusion some time ago that there is an inverse relationship between the price of the printer and the cost of the ink. Cheap printers use expensive ink. That is why the last two libraries I have been at have moved from cheap ink jet printers for each PC to networked laser printers. When you do the “total cost of ownership” (TCO) calculation, the investment in the more expensive machine is worth it especially in a library setting.

I have managed to find some cheap printers that also took cheap ink cartridges, but they turned out to be a waste of money. They just didn’t last long at all. The last one I got was a Lexmark from Walmart. The ink was pretty cheap compared to HP and some other printers for example. The thing was just junk. I was a little disappointed because I bought a similar model previously that lasted several years before I had problems.
I think I might just look into laser printers. For now I am going with a couple HP Photosmart printers at home. I have the C4280- I got it on sale from Office Depot. I just buy the combo packs at Staples or some place like that. i have found some interesting deals, like one that had the larger capacity black and color bundled with photo paper. It cost less than buying the regular cartridges separately, and the paper was selling for $10 alone.
It certainly is interesting how much ink costs per gallon. The manufacturer will make their money one way or the other. The alternative would probably mean much more expensive printers and people who do light printing would get ripped off that way.
The part about the chips and disabling 3rd party inks- I agree that is awful.

I have found that cheap printers have smaller cartridges which cost nearly the same as a large cartridge in a more expensive industrial printer.
This is taken to a ridiculous degree with laser printers. The cheap and small brother laser printer comes with a 700 page “starter” toner (a f**king joke if you ask me), and a full one is 1600 pages.
In contrast, my current SAMSUNG laser printer has an 8000 page toner. I bought my cartridge for a US dollar equivalent of 45 dollars. That means that each of the smaller BROTHER cartridges would have to cost 8 dollars to create a similar value. Of course that is by far not the case.
Marketing degrees should be held in hell, not at universities.