Everyone who owns or has owned an inkjet printer has faced this. What a racket the inkjet printer business is. Manufactures could give printers away for free and any profit decrease would be negligible due to the high price of the ink cartridges -- various websites put the price at around $8,000 per gallon. The accompanying chart comes from reflectionsof.me and puts the price of printer ink at about double the price of human blood. (We could write in our own blood, I guess. But it has such a short shelf life, never mind the Hazmat reception it might get.)
I've used HP printers for years, so by now I've got a severe case of ink buyer's burnout. And the last time I bought a cartridge I vowed that would be the last HP inkjet cartridge I bought. But picking out a new printer is a tedious chore. Amazon has a cool review feature where purchasers can share their joys and troubles online. But there's too much information. The hapless shopper is left confused by all the cheers and jeers. There's always someone who loves that new printer, but then there's someone else complaining about some particular bug.
By and far, ink cartridges are the main source of complaint. And it involves all the major brands. Kodak is currently running an advertising campaign touting their cheap ink cartridges. But read the reviews and you see the catch. The Kodak printers use black ink cartridges and color cartridges. And if any one of them runs empty, the printer won't print until you replace it. There hasn't been a bigger racket since the invention of the pre-rolled cigarette.
So what does a person do? Here's where the reviews pay off. Enough reviewers suggested the laser printer for simple black and white printing to sway this prospective buyer in that direction. No more inkjet cartridges for me.
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