I’ll start: printers.

I bought an HP in March 2020 when my job went remote and HP bricked it remotely after only 100 pages because I wouldn’t sign up for their subscription program. Ended up trashing a perfectly good printer.

Luckily my library’s close by and I can print there remotely.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    5·
    3 days ago

    Printers are a loss leader for selling ink cartridges.

    Not quite — a loss leader is also sold at loss, so similar pricing concept, but that’s to get you in the store, where (statistically) people will buy more.

    What (many) inkjet printers do is the razor-and-blades model.

    The razor-and-blades business model[1] is a business model in which one article is sold at a low price or even given away in order to increase sales of a complementary good, such as consumable supplies. It is different from loss leader marketing and product sample marketing, which do not depend on complementary products or services. Common examples of the razor-and-blades model include inkjet printers whose ink cartridges are significantly marked up in price, coffee machines that use single-use coffee pods, electric toothbrushes, and video game consoles, which require additional purchases of accessories and software not included in the original package.[1]

    Laser printers tend to be less prone to this. You can also get inkjet printers that aren’t using locked-down cartridges, will take tanks of ink and don’t try to keep out competing ink vendors — but keep in mind that while the ink will cost less, the base printer will also cost more than the razor-and-blades model printers. Canon’s “MegaTank” line is one such example.