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European Parliament: No More Ink-Cartridge Chips
Leon Zandman writes "Electric News reports that the European Parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday in favour of a new EU "electroscrap" recycling law, which comes into effect in 2006 and includes a ruling directing manufacturers of printers to no longer incorporate chips into their own-brand ink refill cartridges. These chips prevent cartridges produced by other manufacturers from being used in many printers. In addition, proponents of the measure say the chips prevent them from being refilled -- a feature on many cartridges made by printer manufacturers. Seems that prices of printer cartridges are going to drop. Let's hope the prices of the printers themselves will not skyrocket..."
The current business model is "Sell the printer at a loss, clean up on supplies."
Since the printer companies won't be able to rely on this anymore, they will have to jack up prices just to make a profit.
This is something I don't think many (non-techie) consumers realize. Many complain about high ink prices, but don't realize the manufacturer probably sold the printer at a loss.
Oh poor baby HP - can't monopolize the ink business anymore. Frankly, I think this is the greatest thing that could have happened to the printer biz - because like people are saying, they'd rather drop a few hundred on a printer and not have to spend a bloody fortune on ink all the time. My damn ink dries up before I can even use it, and my printer takes the 2 cartdriges, so they screw me over every time I need to print something. Trust me, ink competition in this market is a good thing. This would be like if you could buy a car for $100 and every time you needed gas, it cost you $500 and you could only buy gas from one company. It's just not right.
When governments artificially interfere with capitalism, it always causes undesired consequences.
If I were a printer manufacturer, I would not sell printers or cartridges in that country. I would still sell them to bordering countries. Net affect... You still have to buy my printer, and you still have to buy my ink cartridge. It just costs you more because you have buy it someowhere else (ie, internet).
If I didn't go this route, and I decided to still try to compete, I would have to run two models of printers/ink cartridges. And I would be caucious of people in other countries exporting said printers. Also, I would no longer have revenue in ink. Therefore, rise my printer price as much as possible to a) discourage exports and b) still make some money off the deal. I would also have to add in the costs of running two business lines. So any savings in ink cartridges is almost certainly gone.
My third option would be to change all of my printers to this business model. However, in the rest of the world, do you really think Joe Consumer, looking at two printers with identical print quality and relability would buy a $500 printer over a $50 one? I know I wouldn't. Therefore, very quickly, this printer company would only be selling printers in that one country who has mandated this printer law. (Companies know this, and I'm sure they'll choose one of the other two options.)
What does this mean to the consumers of these government controlled printers? They're going to pay more money for their printing. Conclusion, Government regulation costs more money than it saves, and effeciency can be gained by removing government restrictions.
It's like when those bonehead politicians try to place maximum prices on Gas or Food. Net affect, you don't get any gas or food, but when you do get it, it's cheap. I'd rather pay market value for gas than have none at all. Same with food. That's why the Russian Communist system didn't work.
This isn't the sig you are looking for... Carry on...
You had the choice to buy a more expensive printer with cheaper/generic capable cartridges. But you didn't. Let the market choose (like you did when you bought the thing). Why should a few politicians outvoice the masses who have chosen to buy cheap printers with expensive cartridges?
This isn't the sig you are looking for... Carry on...
I dont see this helping current state of affairs. What about printers that currently require that chip?
Also, will this spill over into other countries? Ie, would manufactures make printers w/o chip requirements, and then simply market then to all? Or only make a set of printers specially for Europe, and Europe only, leaving chips in those destined for elsewhere?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
I used write firmware for a company that made high end injet printers and here's what I learned about this there:
1) HP replacement cartridges contain not just ink but also the jets themselves. While this makes the cartridges more expensive it means if you get clogged jets or burned out heaters, (both of which WILL happen) just buy a new cartridge rather than sending your printer off to be repaired (a la Epson). Hell, if you know what you're doing, you can even clean them yourselves, if they're readily acecssible (Which they tend not to be unless they're part of the cartridge, though this obviously isn't necessary)
2) Additionally the circuitry is able to keep track of how much ink is in a cartridge. This allows the cartridge to know its own capacity and allows the software to let you know when it's empty. Depending on how you use your printer it may not matter, but if you're queuing up large print jobs and then leaving it to churn away, it is a benefit to know when you're out of ink, rather than putting stripes vaguely resembling your output on 200 sheets of paper.
3) For high end color printers, if you're actually doing high end stuff ideally the print cartridge should be able to report information about the color profile of the ink in it. An alternative is to have each print cartridge come with a little card that you feed to the printer - that's what my former employer does, but that means you have more parts and more plastic, plus it adds another step to the process which people can screw up.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!