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by scottLobster
1391 days ago
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Because mass-market customers by and large are cheap, stupid and easily parted from their money. If they weren't one of these companies would have figured out that producing quality printers/refillable ink cartridges makes more money, and consumers would avoid the scams. It clearly doesn't work that way. See also payday loans, sub-prime mortgages, most targeted credit cards (the cards are fine, but they target people they know have a higher chance to misuse them), food and alcohol in stadiums, the car rental company that tries to up-sell you from the Toyota Corolla to the more expensive convertible, etc. If you're in a mass-market business and not trying to scam people as much as possible you're leaving money on the table by definition. It's only when the scams are actually illegal that the risk becomes too great to tolerate, and even then some bet that they can get away with it. Also people are printing less than they used to. So much single-use paper is now a QR code on your phone or completely digitized. I bought 10 reams of printer paper about 5 years ago for home use, my family has worked our way through three over the years. When the kids get old enough I imagine the bulk of it will be used for school papers. On the business side we've seen a mass digitization of most documents, my company is steadily getting rid of the last of the old file cabinets as any relevant info in them is scanned/archived. So volume is less, and existing printer companies need squeeze more to maintain profits. |
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The same bullship is happening with tractors, home appliances, hospital equipoment, military radio equipment !
The truth of hte matter is that giving companies unremovable ownership and control over a product they've already sold, and allowing them to reach into my house over my WiFi was a step away from freedom and towards feudalism.