Toners

Blessed are the Geeks, for they shall internet the earth

Air-Freshers, Toner Cartridges and the State of the Economy (10/14/2002) by Doug Chick When people ask me what printer they should buy I always tell them; before buying any printer, first go see what the printer cartridges cost. Because if you don't, the first time you do have to purchase an ink cartridge you'll be so shocked that a rather large pocket of air will liberate itself from your body. And because most printers come with a half full ink cartridge anyway, you might find yourself in an isle with others just as surprised as you are. Believe me, the experience can be deafening. And I narrate this as delicately as a person of my blunt nature can. 

It makes you wonder whether printer companies are in the business of selling toner cartridges or printers? This is especially true for people that want to print their own pictures using a digital camera and color inkjet printer. If the ink cartridge is 30 bucks and you can only print 5 full color pictures or so from it, why do it? And quite frankly the picture quality isn't that nice. As most computer people know Laser Jet cartridges for the office are even more expensive. I won't even speculate to what the price of these might make your body do. Printer companies have created a nice recurring residual for themselves. In fact, I don't see why they don't simply give the printers away for free and just boost up the cartridge price another dollar or two.

Recurring revenue is what keeps the U.S. strong. If people don't buy then companies have to cut back on product, which leads to lay-offs, which results in a recession. It is a very delicate balance as we have seen in recent months. The reoccurring dollar keeps us all happy, working, recreating and fat. (Not necessarily in that same order.) Unfortunately it seems that for our economy to be successful we also have to produce a lot of waste, create a lot of environmental damage and depend on people from a few third world countries to work for 5 dollars a week. All of this because someone asked me this week what was a good printer to buy. I think answers like this are why no one likes to ask me questions anymore. 

So in a healthy economy people will be happy, fat and with plenty of disposable income for things such as printer cartridges. And of course as many people may not know, printer cartridges are generally located on the same isle as the air-freshers--In a good economy.