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Reader Sees Through Inkjet Come-On

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Leonard of Arlington VA takes sardonic amusement in consumer complaints about over-priced inkjet cartridges (9/4/03):

I am both amused and annoyed when I read complaints about ink-jet printer ink cartridges costing so much. I feel sorry for the naive people who don't realize it, but this is just the ink-jet scam. The printers are generally priced very low, sometimes even thrown into package deals for "free", but the consumables cost a lot.

It is, I think, a widely accepted, if not publicly admitted, fact that ink-jet printer manufacturers use the strategy (I would call it scam) outlined above - they make little or no profit, or even take a loss, on the sale of the printer and expect to make it up in spades with the ink cartridges. This sort of strategy is not new.

It works, I believe, because the majority of consumers respond only to the initial price and do not look at the total cost of ownership and use. The sad result is that almost all other more worthy types of color printers have been edged off retailer's shelves. Yes, shame on the manufacturers for employing this sort of strategy, but shame also on the consumers who don't invest the little time and effort, and who won't disengage themselves from the myth of "free" or deals that are too good to be true, to see through these ploys and make better choices.

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