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Everyone knows the feeling of dread when a printer starts begging for more ink. While the machines themselves are oftentimes a bargain, the ink can drain y'all dry. That might change soon as HP, the largest maker of consumer printers is considering a alter that would mean cheaper ink. The downside is the printers themselves might be more than spendy.

The printer business is an case of the tried-and-true "razor blade model." That term comes from razor manufacturers which sell the handles inexpensive only accuse high prices for the blades to go with them. Over fourth dimension, the company can brand many times more on the blades than they could always make on a high-priced handle. PrintersSEEAMAZON_ET_135 See Amazon ET commerce are the same with inexpensive hardware and expensive ink cartridges. However, pilus but keeps growing, but our need for printing continues to drop.

An analyst report from Morgan Stanley claims that HP is internally planning to give up on the razor bract model. It'south non doing information technology to brand yous happy, though. It's about money — HP isn't making every bit much of it on printer ink because people impress less ofttimes. The investor notation says that nearly 20 pct of HP's printer customers aren't buying plenty ink to be profitable.

Existence stuck on the razor blade business model has probably contributed to the sorry land of today's printers. Near every role of the computing experience is better than it was at the plow of the last century, just printers are well-nigh unchanged. Certain, they have Wi-Fi and fancy fiddling LCD screens, but print and hardware quality have stagnated. If HP works on selling the printers instead of the ink, nosotros could end up with better devices. Imagine, an inkjet printer that doesn't commencement choking on paper or spitting out distorted pages later on 18 months.

We might finally see HP release some innovative printers if this plan comes to fruition, only it'll come up with a cost. Specifically, a higher price for printers. Instead of counting on ink sales to plow a profit, HP would take to make money selling yous a better printer. That ways a higher upfront toll, but perchance that's worth it to escape this nightmarish cycle of expensive ink and failure-prone hardware. If HP tin make this work, other manufacturers could become on board and modify printers for the better.

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