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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..."
Fixed that for you, Xerox.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Spoilers: it's a cookbook.
Otherwise you would end up printing in PAL instead of NTSC.
After all this time, and something so blatant - does Xerox really think this isn't obvious to everyone what they are doing? They have to lie to us to justify it?
They do not have a monopoly, we can just go to a different brand that has some respect for their customers.
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.
"To Server Customers Better"
Its a cook book!
.
When companies are so blatant about wanting to overcharge their customers, it makes it real easy to identify them and remove the bad companies from our approved vendor list.
Certainly Xerox can manufacture whatever products they like. We have the right not to buy them (and, say, buy from the competition). Two remarks anyway:
1. Doing this in secret is underhanded, and they should be upfront, Despite the negative reaction by some members of the public ("it's unfair that I'm paying more than X"), there is nothing wrong with a company trying for market segmentation. They should tell the complainers to grow up
2. Everyone should own whatever they own. So, if I own a printer or a toner cartridge, I should have the right to modify and reprogram them however I like (say, to report a different zone or to ignore zonal coding). Courts have rebuffed Xerox and Lexmark as they attempted to use the DMCA to protect their business strategies, but the DMCA (US), Bill C-11 (Canada) and their worldwide clones still apply to DVD-players, for example. That should stop.
I've been in the copier/printer/fax/computer business for over 30 years. Region locking things has been going on for about that long. It first started with designing a tab, prong or other plastic part, to prevent a cartridge from working. Savin, some Lanier, Ricoh boxes are the same, but their cartridges won't fit. Toshiba, some lanier, Kyocera boxes are the same, but their toner won't fit. They use to do it with the above mentioned "break away" tabs (if you knew what to change), but that wasn't good enough, so they put a different drive gear coupling on the rear. But that wasn't good enough. Now a lot of them have either a CRM chip, or an RFID chip on the back of the cartridge that gets close enough to the one in the machine to read it. If they don't match, it won't work. In the "olden" days of dry toner copier, they did this to prevent a person from refilling the toner cartridges. With the color copiers/printers, the particle sizes have reached such a small size, and, the temperature melting points are becoming so small, that if you vary the toner or carrier just a very small amount, it makes a mess and can destroy some components. The DRM on cartridges is a PITA because if you slap a genuine new one in, and it doesn't read, it creates a service call. Sometimes, you can go in and tell it to look for the cartridge again, but if that doesn't work, you have to reject the cartridge and RMA it back to the company.
Why don't they just put a gun to our heads and take our money? Fuck Xerox!
This is done all the time with disposables in medical devices.
yes indeed, the risk of death is the same for toner cartridges and medical devices
So if they region lock it so we can't use the (same, but) cheaper cartridges from Eastern Europe and Asia, can we region lock it so they can't use the cheaper workers from Easter Europe and Asia?
"Yeah, we did that to ensure that we can gouge as much as possible. You see, international trade and benefiting from cheap labor abroad is only good if we can profit from it, not when it cuts into our profits."
Seriously? Did you expect him to tell you the truth? C'mon, be reasonable.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If any of these countries are part of the Eurozone and this is preventing someone from one part of the EU using something from another part of the EU, then Xerox will have some answering to do. EU laws, from my understanding, make this sort of thing illegal within its territory.
If you are region locked to the whole Eurozone, then that is okay. Of course it doesn't change that this is a dick move, on the part of Xerox, IMO.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Perhaps, but it's a choice by printer companies to save money and simplify maintenance. It'd be a bit like if lawnmowers had a combined sump/oil filter that came pre-filled with oil. Nice, simple, and quick to replace. But perhaps the filter lasts longer than the oil, or vice versa.
In a big printer, like a car or riding lawnmower, having them be separate makes sense. Diesel Trucks(and I'm not talking pickups here), often have different maintenance intervals for their filters and oil. For that matter, they'll often TEST their oil to make sure it's still good, because testing makes financial sense when you're looking at a 40 quart oil change vs a 5 quart one. In many cases they'll replace the oil filter only, pour in a new quart of oil to replace the oil lost in the filter, and keep on going.
When it comes to cartridges, there's 'usually' 1-3 components. Toner, drum, and waste toner storage. The problem you can get with remanufactured ones is if the toner (2k pages) is put into a heavily recycled cartridge without also replacing the drum (~40k pages) and emptying the waste toner.
I don't read AC A human right
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."