$8,000-per-gallon printer ink leads to antitrust lawsuit
The printer makers have been waging an all-out war against third-party vendors that sell replacement cartridges at a fraction of the price. The tactics employed by the printer makers to maintain monopoly control over ink distribution for their printing products have become increasingly aggressive. In the past, we have seen HP, Epson, Lenovo and other companies attempt to use patents and even the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in their efforts to crush third-party ink distributors.
The companies have also turned to using the ink equivalent of DRM, the use of microchips embedded in ink cartridges that work with a corresponding technical mechanism in the printer that blocks the use of unauthorized third-party ink.
Tip – by a printer from a company that doesn’t rip you off as much for ink: The Kodak 5300 All-in-One Printer, which uses ultra low-priced ink to help you save up to 50 percent. Kodak has made the strategic decision to compete with the entrenched printing companies by not ripping off customers as much.
Related: Kodak Debuts Printers With Inexpensive Cartridges – Price Discrimination in the Internet Age – Zero Ink Printing – Open Source 3-D Printing
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This is a combination of companies 1) not being customer focused, 2) short term thinking, 3) very oligopolistic markets (very little competition)…