Well, Lexmark often gives the printers away for free, (with purchase of
just about anything. They come with one set of ink, and most people use
up the and then dump the printer and get another for free, or take the
free ink from the next one and use it in the first and try to sell the
new printer sans ink.

The reason the printers are usually sold for the retail cost of the OEM
ink plus a few buck, that way they don't compete with their own ink sales.

Art

Taliesyn wrote:


Which naturally explains why the price of printers continues to go down
in leaps and bounds - they're making a killing with their ink cartridges
whose cost to us remains constant - as much as $125 for a set of 5 in
Canada. I'm sure someone's done research at Canon that showed they could
give the printers away and still make a profit with just their inks.
Probably a dumping law prohibits them from such a scheme.


Yes, it is totally and inexcusably absurd. My sister's a teacher at a
Grade school. When she recently asked kids to print a couple of pictures
of animals at home she had nearly half the kids report they had no ink
in their printers. This is what commonly happens. Parents buy a printer
(or get one free with a computer), use up the ink, and then suffer
"sticker shock" after viewing the price of new cartridges. Alas, the
family printer sits idle, becoming an OEM paperweight or doorstop.

-Taliesyn