4 ms·

It seems like a desperate move to make as much money as possible before the consumer printing industry becomes irrelevant.

kramerger 4y ago
20-25 years ago ink generated the majority of their profits. They know what they are doing. These days they have fewer enterprise costumers so they need to be more careful on how they introduce it.
eternityforest 4y ago
I wonder what happens then. Do printers become unaffordable, or will some random Chinese company make a $30 printer? A lot of arts and crafts and decorations become real hard without a printer,and monochrome laser is basically useless for home use cases(Unless you actually like paper for documents)
- cromka 4y ago
  > or will some random Chinese company make a $30 printer? Surprised Xiaomi hasn’t disrupted that industry yet.
mnd999 4y ago
Why would consumer printing become irrelevant?
- frankjr 4y ago
  Maybe it's just my own little bubble but everything around me seems to be going digital. I used to print invoices / received printed invoices, communicated with the government with printed forms. These days I receive/send invoices via email, and communicate with the government via their web apps. I haven't printed anything in quite a while. And if I wanted to print a photo to put on a wall, I would probably go to a professional shop anyway to get the best quality.
  - mnd999 4y ago
    I don’t print much, but i do need to print things several times a month, I would definitely miss it. Probably my biggest use case is printing off maps for hiking trips.
- diffeomorphism 4y ago
  Continuing trend. https://www.gapintelligence.com/blog/home-printers-stay-essential-but-cant-offset-overall-industry-declines/ https://www.gapintelligence.com/blog/home-printers-stay-esse... Since HN tends to be incredibly pedantic: "irrelevant" here is obviously not literal.
  - DrSiemer 4y ago
    Not obvious. A simple "mostly" would have fixed the statement. Speaking as someone who still occasionally needs a print-out and will not ever see that need go away unless some kind of amazing e-ink technology becomes the norm.
    - trinsic2 4y ago
      Agreed. When there is paper thin and paper light e-ink tech that cost about as much as paper then I will consider going all digital. I tried going all digital with my business forms process with iPads. It didn't work out.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

kramerger 4y ago

20-25 years ago ink generated the majority of their profits. They know what they are doing. These days they have fewer enterprise costumers so they need to be more careful on how they introduce it.

eternityforest 4y ago

I wonder what happens then. Do printers become unaffordable, or will some random Chinese company make a $30 printer? A lot of arts and crafts and decorations become real hard without a printer,and monochrome laser is basically useless for home use cases(Unless you actually like paper for documents)

cromka 4y ago
> or will some random Chinese company make a $30 printer? Surprised Xiaomi hasn’t disrupted that industry yet.

mnd999 4y ago

Why would consumer printing become irrelevant?

frankjr 4y ago
Maybe it's just my own little bubble but everything around me seems to be going digital. I used to print invoices / received printed invoices, communicated with the government with printed forms. These days I receive/send invoices via email, and communicate with the government via their web apps. I haven't printed anything in quite a while. And if I wanted to print a photo to put on a wall, I would probably go to a professional shop anyway to get the best quality.
- mnd999 4y ago
  I don’t print much, but i do need to print things several times a month, I would definitely miss it. Probably my biggest use case is printing off maps for hiking trips.
diffeomorphism 4y ago
Continuing trend. https://www.gapintelligence.com/blog/home-printers-stay-essential-but-cant-offset-overall-industry-declines/ https://www.gapintelligence.com/blog/home-printers-stay-esse... Since HN tends to be incredibly pedantic: "irrelevant" here is obviously not literal.
- DrSiemer 4y ago
  Not obvious. A simple "mostly" would have fixed the statement. Speaking as someone who still occasionally needs a print-out and will not ever see that need go away unless some kind of amazing e-ink technology becomes the norm.
  - trinsic2 4y ago
    Agreed. When there is paper thin and paper light e-ink tech that cost about as much as paper then I will consider going all digital. I tried going all digital with my business forms process with iPads. It didn't work out.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]