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Digital Cameras Go Disposable

Posted by timothy on from the japan-is-weird dept.

iforgotmyfirstlogon writes: "Three Japanese companies are trying to make money off "disposable" digital cameras. You pay for using the camera, take it back to the store to get your pictures, and they recycle the camera so someone else can use it CNN story here. I think it's just a matter of (little) time before hordes of enterprising geeks figure out how to get the pics out and reuse it without paying the fee, or simply gut the camera for parts. Can't see how they'll make money..." And at $16 for .3 megapixels, this sounds like more of a novelty than a bargain, considering that 4-megapixel cameras are available now for less than a thousand dollars.

2 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. same problems as the iOpener? by sllort · · Score: 2, Troll

    "Profit-making relies on how many cameras we can collect and how many times we can recycle them, which can be recycled for several times," says Katsuhiko Miyata, an Asahi Optical spokesperson, noting that the manufacturing cost of the camera, even at this quality level, is still more than the service fee.

    This is going to have the same problem those subscription-based internet appliances had. As soon as someone figures out how to hack these into a webcam, people are going to buy them and not return them.

    As the company spokesperson admitted, the problem is the cost differential. They're depending on a certain percentage of customers actually returning the cameras X number of times. If they can hit that percentage and that X, they're good.

    My guess is the first person to put out information on how to hack one of these is going to get slapped with a lawsuit.

  2. Where have these people been? by deitrahs · · Score: 0, Troll
    "Profit-making relies on how many cameras we can collect and how many times we can recycle them, which can be recycled for several times," says Katsuhiko Miyata, an Asahi Optical spokesperson, noting that the manufacturing cost of the camera, even at this quality level, is still more than the service fee.

    Um... is it just me, or is this yet ANOTHER variation on the Cue:Cat? Is Japan so far behind that they're just NOW getting to the dot.com bubble stage of their economic collapse?

    "We're selling them at a loss... but we'll make it up in volume!"

    Of course, that doesn't stop me from wanting one. This is just screaming "Hack Me!".

    Cheers,
    --bmc