I can appreciate the fact that the printer is cheap because they are making a profit on ink -- if i had a good option to buy a printer that wasn't part of this twisted system. I know I'm once again drawing connections to larger trends, and I wonder if it's always been this way or if we are just living in an age where the costs of things are getting more and indirect and convoluted, and what the repercussions of that are.
Everything on the internet is free, and yet somehow people are making massive money on it by getting paid not from their direct consumers. Printers are dirt cheap because they can make a profit by doing all these convoluted things to keep you from buying 3rd party ink for it. My gut feeling is that this kind of convolution is not healthy -- that it distorts the way we view and interact with the stuff we consume, and poisons the well for companies that do not want to do business this way. It makes it very hard for consumers to truly compare prices and know what they are getting.
A similar thing happens with banks and credit cards -- we no longer expect to pay for services -- we expect them to be free but for the banks to make massive profits by tricking us with fees we know we have to try to make sure we don't fall into, or charging extra for "services" (like accepting an electronic payment instead of a mailed in check) which actually save them money.
You could argue that whether you pay for the printer or the ink it's all the same -- maybe you're right, i don't know. But my gut tells me that there is a real "cost" to living in an age where so much effort is being put into disguising the real costs of the things we consume. And a penalty we are going to pay for accepting it as just the way things are done.
Interesting article related to this:
http://motherjones.c...meet-new-hidden-fees
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