[Spooky23]

I never get why people get so angry about this.

I’m a stupid consumer with printers. I have a HP office jet and pay like $5/month for their ink subscription. I print 30-80 pages a month. The economics work. I have a cheap capable inkjet MFP in the same cost envelope of a bigger, lower toner cost laser.

The printer talks PCL and works with anything I’ve tried including Linux.

[criddell]

It works for you because you print a lot (1-3 pages per day!). OP prints fewer than 10 pages per year.

[YuriNiyazov]

There’s a $1/month subscription. You get 10 pages a month.

The author would pay $12/year for 10 pages per year, without the cost of the cartridge. You need 20 years before you reach the cost of a $240 cartridge. The cartridge would’ve dried out before then.

This entire article is an exercise in “I can’t do math”

[mthoms]

Are you talking about something else? The article is about region locking which means, by definition, that the ink available in North America won’t work. Money isn’t the only consideration in these situations anyways. For some people it’s the principle.

More directly to your point - the author plainly acknowledges the sunk cost fallacy at play here. I’m pretty sure he can do the math.

[YuriNiyazov]

I’m talking about the snide remarks towards InstankInk throughout the article. The GP says that because the author prints 10 pages a year it’s a bad deal. I’m arguing that InstantInk is a great deal for someone that prints 10 pages a year. The author should’ve said “yea, I followed principles here, but honestly I should’ve gotten InstankInk from the very beginning” instead of crapping on it

[mthoms]

How would he get instant ink in North America with an EU region printer? Would you trust an org this incompetent to do that properly... or at all?

Anyways, he plainly acknowledges the sunk cost fallacy at play here.

[_ZeD_]

guys, we've found the HP CEO

[Spooky23]

Lol. Wait till you have a bunch of kids who want to print color.

[Jorengarenar]

Have you tried telling them "no"?

[hulitu]

Yes, until they need it for school.

[YuriNiyazov]

Same here, except I print way less, so I’m on a dollar per month sub, and just pay for overages sometimes.

I think instant ink is a better product in terms of money saved, especially when you account for the risk of cartridges drying out.

Now, to be clear, when it first came out, I thought “evil capitalists” just like everyone else in this thread. But I think it’s wrong, there’s just a yuckiness factor associated with paying monthly for something you theoretically own.

I think we should just move on as a society from the idea that you somehow “own” cheap personal property like phones and printers and fridges, etc.

Everything is perpetually leased

[antonvs]

> I think instant ink is a better product in terms of money saved, especially when you account for the risk of cartridges drying out.

They created a problem for which the solution was a subscription. Laser toner doesn't have this issue.

> I think we should just move on as a society from the idea that you somehow “own” cheap personal property like phones and printers and fridges, etc.

You do own it. If you want to pay someone a monthly fee to help you manage it, that's your choice. But to say that everyone else should "move on as a society" because of your personal choices is very arrogant.