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Printer Makers Are Crippling Cheap Ink Cartridges Via Bogus 'Security Updates' (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Printer maker Epson is under fire this month from activist groups after a software update prevented customers from using cheaper, third party ink cartridges. It's just the latest salvo in a decades-long effort by printer manufacturers to block consumer choice, often by disguising printer downgrades as essential product improvements. For several decades now printer manufacturers have lured consumers into an arguably-terrible deal: shell out a modest sum for a mediocre printer, then pay an arm and a leg for replacement printer cartridges that cost relatively-little to actually produce.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation now says that Epson has been engaged in the same behavior. The group says it recently learned that in late 2016 or early 2017, Epson issued a "poison pill" software update that effectively downgraded user printers to block third party cartridges, but disguised the software update as a meaningful improvement. The EFF has subsequently sent a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, arguing that Epson's lack of transparency can easily be seen as "misleading and deceptive" under Texas consumer protection laws. "When restricted to Epson's own cartridges, customers must pay Epson's higher prices, while losing the added convenience of third party alternatives, such as refillable cartridges and continuous ink supply systems," the complaint notes. "This artificial restriction of third party ink options also suppresses a competitive ink market and has reportedly caused some manufacturers of refillable cartridges and continuous ink supply systems to exit the market."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation now says that Epson has been engaged in the same behavior. The group says it recently learned that in late 2016 or early 2017, Epson issued a "poison pill" software update that effectively downgraded user printers to block third party cartridges, but disguised the software update as a meaningful improvement. The EFF has subsequently sent a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, arguing that Epson's lack of transparency can easily be seen as "misleading and deceptive" under Texas consumer protection laws. "When restricted to Epson's own cartridges, customers must pay Epson's higher prices, while losing the added convenience of third party alternatives, such as refillable cartridges and continuous ink supply systems," the complaint notes. "This artificial restriction of third party ink options also suppresses a competitive ink market and has reportedly caused some manufacturers of refillable cartridges and continuous ink supply systems to exit the market."
Every once in a while we have an electronics recycling in our area, and they took a count of how many printers they got that were still functional, and it turned out to be about 65%; about 85% of those they could “resale” (meaning they had power cord, etc enough to make them usable, sans new ink). They tried to give them to the local thrift shops, but they usually refuse them because they already have too many of them to try to sell. So they end up in landfills.
So now the local towns are thinking of putting restrictions on the sale of those types of printers.
AC comments get piped to
What's especially annoying with liquid dye printers is that you KNOW that the great majority of users don't use them regularly, so the ink dries out or the inevitable head cleaning uses up a significant portion of the ink, and the price per page becomes ridiculous. Printer companies *know* this -- it's part of their business plan.
For mothers and mothers-in-law, I recommend mid-level color laser printers. The quality is Good Enough for printing facebook photos to tack on the wall, the toner cartridges last a long time, and they never dry out. It's fairly easy to make this case financially, especially to someone frustrated with how much it's costing, and how much they have to dink with the hardware, just to print pictures of their grandkids.
I do photography, but I outsource all my printing. When customers order prints from my website, an outside service does the actual printing and delivery. For ad-hoc printing, I sneaker-net a thumb drive over to some place that can print it for me. And recently, with grocery store chains and drug store chains buying the same Epson roll printers that used to be found only in professional print services, it doesn't really matter who does your printing, if you do your own color correction and don't need special paper.
In the rare instance I need art gallery level printing, I'm not going to do that at home anyway. I'm going to upload my image to a professional print service and either will-call it or have it shipped to me.
The POINT being, there's NO REASON TO OWN A DAMNED DYE-BASED PRINTER and a whole lot of reasons NOT to own one.
Or if you're going to buy one of the stupid things, buy the printer on sale, and when the demo cartridges run out, THROW THE WHOLE PRINTER AWAY and buy another printer on sale. E-waste be damned. Tell the manufacturers to adopt a less wasteful business model.
Let's all as consumers stop acting like battered wives, shall we? Stop playing the game, and the game will change.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
> I have been told laser printers make inferior picture prints.
As someone who has BOTH a color laser printer and inkjet that is indeed TRUE.
* Laser printers are awesome for text but OK for photographs,
* Inkjet printers are OK for text (slightly blurry) but phenomenal for portraits, and HDR photographs.
One of the many standard "litmus test images" are the ones listed on the defunct Outback Print
From 3+ feet away you can't tell the difference between an inkjet and color laser on "natural" images. (i.e. non test patterns.) But closer then 3 feet and you start to notice the flaws of color laser printers -- especially gradients that have artifacts. Not Mach Banding but error dot diffusion patterns due to the small size of toner color laser printers basically "print" in a halftone pattern.
> I doubt professional industry-grade printing firms print their photos on inkjet printers.
That's because they care more about cost then quality.
> see no reason why laser printer pigments would have to be inferior.
I take it you don't do much (any?) printing of HDR photos. Here is a primer (pardon the pun.)
First, color laser printers only have the standard 4 color CYMK toners. This means the gamut is not quite as large as inkjets's dyes and pigments.
Second, in Canon printers the large black "PGI" cartridge are pigments which is used when printing text. The remaining color tanks may be dye based inks which tend to have smaller particles than the pigment based inks. See Canon PGI vs CLI for more details.
Third, inkjets tend to have more dyes then just the standard 4 color CYMK inks. For example, the Canon Pixma PRO-1 is a 12 pigment system. Why 12?
5 are dedicated for black and white printing:
* LGY (Light Gray)
* GY (Grey)
* DGY (Dark Grey)
* MBK (Matte Black)
* PBK (Photo Black)
Remaining 7 are for colors:
* C (Cyan)
* Y (Yellow)
* M (Magenta)
* R (Red)
* PC (Photo Cyan)
* PM (Phtoto Magenta)
* CO (Chroma Optimizer)
If you want the best quality the type of printer inkjet vs color laser matters due to printing technology. i.e. For every day use a color laser printer is more then good enough but if you want quality portraits nothing beats an inkjet.
Perhaps you should read about how a laser printer works. The laser never hits the toner.
It's used to dissipate the static charge on the drum so it only picks up toner in the correct place to print the image.
The only heating that occurs is the drum that fuses the toner to the paper. That only melts the toner, it doesn't vaporise it.
Ink jet printers on the other do vaporise ink in some types.
HP used to brag that the instantaneous temperature inside the print head heats up hotter than the surface of the Sun. It's called "thermal drop-on-demand" . Canon, HP and Lexmark use it.