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Regionally Encoded Toner Cartridges 'to Serve Customers Better'
sandbagger writes: The latest attempt to create artificial scarcity comes from Xerox, according to the editors at TechDirt, who cite German sources: "Xerox uses region coding on their toner cartridges AND locks the printer to the first type used. So if you use a North America cartridge you can't use the cheaper Eastern Europe cartridges. The printer's display doesn't show this, nor does the hotline know about it. When c't reached out to Xerox, the marketing drone claimed, this was done to serve the customer better..."
Spoilers: it's a cookbook.
Why do we get through so much paper? Everything is electronic now, but much of it seems to need a printed copy too.
They mean it in the "bend over and get 'served'" sense of the word?
God but Xerox and the other printer companies are ran by assholes.
And, of course, they can now use the DMCA to prevent someone making cartridges.
This is why we can't have nice things. Because idiot politicians have given all the power to corporations, and consumers no longer have any choice in the matter but to get fucked^Wserverd however is dictated to them.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I guess this is the next logical step from HP chipping ink cartridges to enforce an expiration date.
This must have looked like an amazing idea on some MBA's PowerPoint presentation -- manufacture the exact same thing, sell it for more in the developed world, -and- increase market share in the developing world. Just have to hope the customers don't find out about it....oops.
Airlines do this all the time. They charge more for last minute purchases or travel over holidays even though the customer is getting the same service -- moving them from point to point. Why? Because they can!! The difference in this case is that Xerox can now force customers to keep paying the higher fare.
Of course you are perfectly right. After all, the primary purpose of any company in capitalism is to make more money, no matter the cost.
you are wrong
the primary purpose of any company in capitalism is to make more money for the owners
everyone else can sod off
The release was written in Neuspeak, invented first for banks and hotels in the mid-twentieth century.
In neuspeak, "for your convenience" really means "for our profit."
"For your safety" means "For our convenience."
Neuspeak is spreading slowly to other industries, as well, but its form and syntax were perfected when used on a sign on a shuttered bank office in Sycamore, Ohio, which read: "For your convenience, this branch is closed."
"Actually, I think it should be unlawful"
You're not looking at this in the right way. It should be lawful to encrypt cartridges as a way of making more money, and it should be equally lawful for a customer to decrypt them as a way of saving money. THAT is how real capitalism would work.
Xerox is ripping us off not by region encoding its products, but by using federal power to criminalize whatever consumer forms of post-purchase hacking of its product that consumer may find advantageous.
OTOH, government could get rid of at least the part of the DMCA that allows companies like Xerox to make the region coding stick.
Yea, he can totally go to one or 2-3 identical companies with identical products that do the exact same thing. SO MUCH FREEDOM! Only repeated studies show that if fewer than 5 companies hold more than 70% market share, there is no measurable competition, and therefore no relationship between supply, demand, and price. Just look up the list of things required for perfect competition, a third of the items are physically impossible, a third extremely unlikely, and less than 5% of the factors exist when markets have so few major players. Markets are only free if they are very competitive. Xerox can only get away with this because they don't have to care about pissing off customers, so long as they aren't an order of magnitude worse than their fellow giants.
ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn