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..."

Comments

Language Problem

[Anna Merikin]

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."

Re:Done to _gouge_ the customer better

[Applehu Akbar]

"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.

Re:Done to _gouge_ the customer better

[ExekielS]

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.