There was an article on the web today talking about the price of ink for Kodak printers. And how Kodak was lowering the price on their ink which was overpriced to begin with etc etc. Well whoop-tee-do. It is their traditional approach. They used to give away Brownie cameras and then soak folks for the film. It is the idea that you give away the guns then sell the bullets to make your money. Cheap device expensive consumables. Why is this a surprise?
The worst case I saw for that was with a Lexmark printer I bought. The printer was $67 and came with 2 smaller ink cartridges. The printer was capable of using larger cartridges but they cost $79 a set. The small replacements were $45 a set. So what to do? I went with the larger replacements, getting hosed in the process. If the printer came from the factory with the larger cartridges I would have been better off getting a whole new printer. But it only comes with the small ones so replacing the machine just to replace the small cartridges was not viable. Pretty sneaky these printer guys. But let me tell you the next time they jack the cartridge prices look out. Also if the printer gives me one hiccup of trouble it is out the door too.
What was it Stompin' Tom sang? "The consumer they call us we always get a fair shake. We buy a Fridge that doesn't freeze and a stove that doesn't bake!" He nailed it pretty good if you ask me. And electronics are the worst offenders.
Take IPODs for example or MP3 players to a lesser extent. You can get a 500 meg IPOD that will store 700 songs. Several days worth of music non stop but is that good enough? No sir you need the 1 gig IPOD because you absolutely cannot live with out your top 1440 songs. Who has a list of 1440 top songs? No one. No one has 700 favorites either. I will put money on it no one, except the odd weirdo with too much time on their hands, can even list 700 songs. So what do they need a one gig for? Just cause they can afford it and it is bigger than their buddy's.
Everything is hype these days. They gouge you on the prices and hype it up till you think you can't live without it. Well give your head a shake folks do you really believe the hype?
And Christmas is coming. Hypee Holidays. Watch the companies ramp up the hype. The excited states are teetering on a recession so this will be their last chance to fleece the old consumers before the crunch. Better get the hype in gear big time. An one of their favorite tricks is to give the guns away free and then sell the bullets.
Mortgage Christmas and Hype the New Year...
Randy
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2 comments:
Oh, let's not forget the fact that if you don't use your printer ever week, what's left in those dinky little cartridges drys out, usually in the print heads, thereby ruining your cartridge before you even get a chance to use it.
I was pouring about 90 dollars a year into cartridges, and only printing about 150 sheets before they packed in, not very economical. Works out to about 60 cents a page to print with ink jet.
I went laser, the printer cost me just over a hundred for monochrome, and I am still working on the original cartrige over a year later. The carts yeild about 3000 pages for 90 bucks, so that's about 3 cents a page, or 1/20th the operational cost.
Even if you want colour printing, Samsung's small color laser printer can be had for less than 200 CAN, produces beautiful prints, and even though it packs 235 worth of toner into the unit at any given time, that still yeilds, over the life of one set of toners, a page cost of $0.12/page.
So, if you want to buy a decent gun, then get your bullets for free, get yourself a small laser.
...borked the post first time out...
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