Printer ink: Tired of feeding the cash cow? | Macworld: Human blood costs about $17.27 an ounce, silver about $34 an ounce. But both are bargains compared to the ink sold to the owners of inkjet printers, which can exceed $80 an ounce. Meanwhile, the ink used to print newspapers costs about 16 cents an ounce.
Some OEM cartridges have expiration dates built into their chips, and cannot be installed after that date, warns Slawetsky. Buying cartridges in bulk at a discount may be self-defeating for such machines, he warns, as a cartridge may expire before it is needed.
But all third-party refill ink for HP cartridges that it has tested fade noticeably within a year.
“The industry figured out years ago that once people buy a printer they are committed to it, so you can sell the printer at or below cost knowing they will buy the cartridges,” adds Charles Lecompte, head of Lyra Research, a market research firm in Newton, Mass. “We think they are selling the cartridges for several times more than it costs to make them.”
Why? “Printer prices have hit rock bottom, and the manufacturers are trying to somehow make up for the money they are not making from the hardware,” says Seheje Saraphy, analyst at market research firm IDC.