Monday, April 2, 2018

Murky business

Okay, so today we're doing something a little different. Today we're talking about ink.

No, not the stuff inside pens or the bottle you dip your quill in to write poetry on parchment with. We are looking at printer ink.

If you google “most expensive liquid” you'll find things like human blood ($1330 per gallon), Chanel No. 5 ($23.300 per gallon) and King Cobra venom ($135.500 per gallon). No problem, expensive stuff, but did you know that black printer ink clocks in at around $2380 per gallon?

So what? I hear you ask. It's expensive to produce, so of course it costs a lot. But that's not the truth. The fluid that costs more than human blood is actually very cheap to produce. I'll link a video below that I highly recommend that you watch. In it you'll learn that a tech company that sells ink cartridges for $59.95 spends no more than $00.23 to produce them. That is not a typo by the way. The ink costs 23 cents to produce, but they sell them for 60 dollars.

If you go to a shop and look around, you'll quickly see that the printers usually costs the same as the ink. You can of course spend a lot more for a high quality printer, but most home printers hover around the $60 mark. The companies actually sell them at a loss in order to sell you ink. Much like razor companies sell the razor handle at a loss, but mark up the changeable blades a great deal. The video goes in to more detail about this, so I'm not going to repeat it all here. That would be pointless.

The actual point is that the entire printer ink business is essentially a scam. Your printer may actually be programmed to waste ink or to lie to you about how much it has left. The question is of course why we allow it. And that is a very good question. I have no answer, but I do know that the first step is to spread information, and that's what I'm doing. You should too.

Alright, enough of that. Here's the direct link if you're reading this by email:


And with that, I'll see you all next time. Until then, have a spotless week!

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