A video claiming that ink cartridges are a “scam” has gone viral on the internet.
YouTuber Gregory Austin McConnell’s 12-minute video details how the cost of ink cartridges is so high compared to the cost of the printers themselves, something he first noticed whilst working in a technical support role, when replacement cartridges with a manufacture cost of 0.23 cents were being retailed for $59.95.
McConnell describes printer ink as “the most expensive liquid in the world” (behind king cobra venom, scorpion venom, Chanel No. 5, insulin, and mercury) and explains the tactics used by OEMs to prevent competitor-brand, refilled or remanufactured cartridges being used in their printer models, as well as the allegedly-nefarious methods deployed to force users into buying more and more cartridges.
These methods that McConnell cites include the printers falsely claiming a cartridge is low when it may still be half-full, and that when printing in solely black, many printers use a small quantity of cyan ink as well, to give a nicer shade of black. This of course means that the cyan ink will start to run out even when not being selected for use, and therefore causing the need to replace the whole CMYK cartridge, when one colour expires.
McConnell also elaborates on an economic trend called the “razor and blades model”, when an item – in this case a printer – is sold at a low-price (indeed, most printers are sold at a loss, he claims) with the complementary consumable products, such as the ink cartridges, then being sold at a disproportionate price in order to recoup the money.
The video ends with McConnell destroying a printer with a sledgehammer, and calling upon viewers to help him start a revolution, for both financial and environmental reasons, and to tell OEMs that people want “affordable ink”, “printers that work” and “printers that last.”
It has so far been viewed nearly 600,000 times.
