5 ms·
As an infrequent printer (a few pages every few months), their ink subscription plan (Instant Ink) is awesome for us. For $1/mo you get 10 pages (color included
by solardev 2y ago
As an infrequent printer (a few pages every few months), their ink subscription plan (Instant Ink) is awesome for us. For $1/mo you get 10 pages (color included), and overages are 10 cents/pg.
So basically for $12 a year we can have a home printer but never have to worry about cartridges. They just show up in the mail when we need more, and the used ones can be recycled in the included mailer.
- zephyreon 2y ago> For $1/mo you get 10 pages (color included), and overages are 10 cents/pg. The math works out when I think about it but for some reason I’m still floored by the fact that $12 only gets you 10 pages of paper for an entire year.
- Arainach 2y agoIf I have to wait for a cartridge to show up in the mail, why wouldn't I just go to FedEx and do my printing there? My Brother B&W laser printers never die and a $30 cartridge ($60 if you buy OEM) lasts a minimum of 2600 and will never dry out. I replace the cartridge once every few years and if I need color then driving over to FedEx etc. is much faster than waiting for something to come in the mail to replace an ink cartridge that will inevitably dry up if you're not using it every day.
- solardev 2y agoColor is the biggie. Color lasers are expensive, around $300 or so last I checked? If we printed more, I'd definitely get one, but we don't (and likely never will). At our usage, buying a new color laser would take a few decades to pay itself back vs this subscription. PS you don't have to wait for new cartridges. It's all connected, so they will automatically mail you a new cartridge as soon as the printer senses it's low-ish, long before it's totally dry. Their customer service bot is generous too. I lost a cartridge during a move, told it I was running low and it automatically shipped me a couple new ones, no questions asked. I don't really know how HP manages to make any money on this, but it's incredibly convenient. Probably they hope you'll end up moving to a higher subscription tier, but that makes no sense because if we printed more, we'd just get a laser. Shrug. I'll enjoy it while it lasts though!
- lazide 2y agoIn India, 90% of the inkjet printers use refillable ink tanks. The ink is way cheaper than in the US, there are no ink cartridges, print quality is the same, and the printers are roughly the same cost too (in USD). Americans are dumb for accepting locked inkjet cartridges.
- jchw 2y agoBeing exploited doesn't come from being dumb. If anything, the way I see it, it's no coincidence if people just happen to be kept ignorant in a way that's beneficial to the systems that are also exploiting them. We do have some printers here that are designed for this use case for what it's worth. Dunno if they are any good. Personally, I have had a Brother color laser for years.
- lazide 2y agoWhat would you call someone ‘prone to be easily exploitable’, and ‘unable to see/resist exploitation’? I’m sure there are other words that we can use too.
- loa_in_ 2y ago"Easily exploitable and unable to resist exploitation" is perfectly fine. We're not short on writing space here.
- lazide 2y agoI don’t know, sounds dumb.
- jchw 2y ago"Dumb" is an insult to someone's intelligence, as if the problem is them. Ignorant is a bit closer. But that's not actually my point to be honest, my point is that the problem is not the people who are getting screwed over. It's the people screwing them over.