The current issues are related to the ink subscriptions that hp and others offer. They mail you ink every month or so for a fee. However if you cancel the service none of the cartridges in your possession that were mailed to you will work, HP locks them out. There's also some cases of scanner functionality being disabled due to lack of ink.

It doesn't matter how old a "scam" is, anti consumers practices should always be called out. In the second video he explains how the printer uses colour ink to print black, the excessive cleaning cycles, not being able to scan if you don't have ink (this one was HP), etc. etc. If printers can't be sold at $50 and be profitable without those practices, companies shouldn't sell them. Not everyone can be an expert in everything, we shouldn't expect everyone to not be scammed when purchasing services or products.

Brilliant rundown on printers and the selling model. I purchased an Epson Ecotank and it paid for itself in about 18 months using the bulk ink.

The very best home printer I ever owned was an old Brother MFC235C that I got in Malaysia (expat assignment) on points with my bank at the time. I used that printer for the home office for 10 years. About 2 years into its use, I bought an external reservoir ($40) with tube-connected cartridges; I only had to Dremel out an area in the plastic front panel to make room for the tubes to pass to the reservoirs without crimping. This MFP worked flawlessly for 10 years before finally failing. The nice thing about that Brother MFC235C was that the cartridges were not chipped...so this mod was a breeze. I then went with a Canon G5050 mega-tank printer...only to have that clog up and fail within 2 years. This time around, I went with a G3520 and plan to do one nozzle check at least every month, to make sure the plumbing is frequently used...to avoid clogs. Keeping my fingers crossed...as these "mega-tank" printers generally do not have the best reputation.

People feel scammed for reasons beyond the price of ink. It's when you're printer refuses to print because it thinks it's low but there's still ink, it's when printers complain and give errors with 3rd party cartridges, it's when you can't print a black and white document because there's no magenta, it's when you can't use the scanner because there's no ink etc etc.

If the printer keeps the print heads and uses a tank supply arrangement, consider the cost of replacement of the print heads. Some of those print heads cost 3,000 dollars each to replace. Consider servicing costs, replacement of pieces parts and... like Mr. Cooper says...consider the cost of the inks.

Some years ago, i had two printers; a basic one for letters, copying, labels, etc. and a better one for photos. I used cheap ink from a refill kit for the former. Worked acceptably well for that task. Now, i use the G620 for everything because it's convenient and takes up less space. Never thought i was being scammed in any case.

Yes, I'm looking back on a video you made six months ago! But It's how much sense you talk that I'm interested in. What you say makes so much sense! Cheers Keith. 😊

There's a concept called "adverserial interoperability": cars can be fueled with properly speced fuel from any manufacturer, not only the car companies' for example. Printer companies have long been due a proper slap on the wrist. What they're doing is anti-environment, anti-consumer and even anti-competitive.

I am only interested in photo printing. So high quality. However the costs of cartridges mean I just do not print anything. The cost of consumables is just plain unreasonable. I do not mind paying out for good equipment, like the computer. I resent the costs of actually printing anything, just display images on quality monitors it is actually cheaper and better. Yes ripping off the public with inks has been going on from the start. Other nonsense is not being able to print on a decent card or paper thickness. Rich people selling images/prints doubtless do not care. Sick of the difficulty and fear of printing anything due to the cost. My printers over my lifetime probably end up costing me several pounds a page as I print barely anything, then they die or are effectively obsolete.

I generally agree with your comments, I remember when supplied cartridges were described as suitable for testing. I've always bought a set of inks whenever I've bought a printer. This year the problem is the swingeing rise in ink cost, a set for my printer has gone from £90 to £170 in six months, hasn't stopped me printing though.

Thank you for being a voice of reason!

There are lots of people who don't know. It is not obvious to most people that the price of ink is higher than gold, diamonds, caviar, champagne etc. Well, you get my gist. So for those people, it is a scam. Plus, as others have pointed out, plastic/oil/CO2/greenhouse gases/waste/landfill etc must be curtailed. I wish there was a world body that could tackle this type of bad practice.

Once again, you explained this that is very easy to understand. Now I have a much better understanding about print quality on inkjet printers. I now feel much better about my choice of printers. I have a Canon Pro-300 and a Canon Tr 720a for basic stuff. Everything I produce, I get good reviews, thanks to what I have learned from you.

I find a lot of printers in the trash, I ultrasonically clean them or inject them with head cleaner and put in ink that costs 10 dollars for four bottles of each ink and they work perfectly. I still don't understand why 3ml of ink costs so much when it has an integrated printhead when you could reuse that printhead for much longer. But what worries me the most are the mountains of printers that have only been used once, and when the owner remembers that he has put it away in the closet, he finds that the cartridges have increased in price and are more expensive than buying a new printer and they throw them away.

Printing photos isn't cheap and can become very expensive. But is more cost effective than when I was developing film and paper in the dark room. The cost of each print was around five time the cost of the inkjet printer and it was far more convenient. But the knowledge and the joy of printing is own photos is far more than the price pay. And by the way I not interested in coming back into the dark room. The price of the equipment the space needed and aving to deal with chemical in an environmental way and the quantity of water waste to wash print. It was fun when it have no other way but today is non sens.

But make sure the printer has a replaceable maintenance tank not just a wad of ink absorbent material jammed inside!

If a person is only printing *black text, laser printers* are fairly inexpensive now. The toner doesn't go bad with age and doesn't require cleaning cycles that wastes ink in the ink printers.

I do agree with you but will say that the real scam is when printer manufacurers prevent you from using third party inks.

If you buy a ET8550 or qualitywise more expensive printer, the upfront ink cost may seem harsh, but the true cost driver is good quality paper. just my opinion after having a little fun with my new 8550.

I recently purchased a new Epson Eco Tank 3850 printer at Costco for $325.00. The setup was relatively easy and I had it up and running in about 15 minutes after unboxing. However, I am extremely disappointed in the quality of the printing for both documents and photos.The edging in the photos were grainy and the colors were darker then the original photos. I reset the color management and it still produced a low quality image. The scanner is also cheap inefficient. After scanning a simple document I discovered the text had jagged edges and the tops of the fonts in some sentences were chopped off. The only way I could get nice sharp fonts in a document was to scan in Photo Mode. The top automatic feeder which is used to scan multiple documents or make copies, pulls the entire stack of papers into the feeder all at once. I had to physically stagger each page individually to prevent the stack from jamming the feeder. All in all this printer is ,sfr of poor quality materials and is cheaply made. Thank God I saved the box. I'm packaging it back up and taking it back to Costco first thing tomorrow.

Well said. There will always be "cheap skates" who do not realise that "you get what you pay for" and "quality comes at a price".

Hello Keith, It may well be that printer manufacturers sell their hardware below the cost of production, a practice that has likely been known for decades. However, in my opinion, it should not be the case that when I have acquired a device, the manufacturer dictates how I should use it. This may be understandable during the warranty period, but certainly not afterwards. It's somewhat akin to an automobile manufacturer telling me that I can only use their brand of gasoline to drive the car. Or that the car starts the engine automatically to clean the injectors and does it again before I can start driving, all under the claim that it ensures longevity and operational safety. To be honest, what utter nonsense! Certainly, companies want to make profits, but in this manner? It's no wonder that a rational person not only feels slight irritation, especially when the printer has been running smoothly, even with cartridges from other manufacturers. And all this just because greedy economists come up with ideas to squeeze even more out of users, ending up as electronic waste. What a great way to promote sustainability and resource conservation. And by the way... the same problem exists with expansive printers too!

A wonderful clip, Keith. I will say that I don't find your clips long, involved, and technical: to me they are informative, detailed, and valuable. Thanks to you, I gained understanding and was able to make an informed decision regarding the printer I bought, and am content with my choice.

Another reason, for me, for using ink tank printers is that I know that I won’t run out of ink in a cartridge part way through a print. I’ve thrown out cartridges in the past which were not completely empty, and that was annoying. Thanks Keith

Ths scam is not about the ink that comes with the printer, the scam is about the cost of the replacement ink cartridges ... which cost a bomb and have hardly any ink in them

We know Gillett sells the razor cheap and makes money on the blades, so fine. But ink jet pushes this too far. They charge just enough for the printer so you feel like you bought it, but then sell ink for what might be $20,000 a gallon. They hide this with page counts that use 5 percent coverage when a photo is 80-100 percent coverage. I will no longer buy a printer for which there are no tanks and no aftermarket ink.

I'm guessing the recent video from Fstoppers is what reignited this discussion. I believe the "scam" part comes from the marketing. With how many people get confused/misunderstand the reason for the high cost, you would expect a response in kind from these printer companies, but that's not what we see. Instead, they seem to lean into the confusion that's been around for decades.

They've been doing this for 30 or 40 years? I don't think bubble jets have even existed that long. I certainly remember them having more ink and the older printers are better printers as the deal keeps getting worse. Of course it's a scam, if you're deceptive about something it's a scam and they aren't upfront about it. HP literally calls it the razor and blade model, and they've taken it too far. It's anti-consumer. We need an open source printer.

I have to assume that the industries response like Epson's Eco tank options, which in Canada makes the cost of ink around 20 bucks per 80 mL which is much more affordable and a fraction of what the usual retail price would be. And these Clarion inks are pretty much the same that you would ordinarily pay for in a tiny cartridge that is 15 mL for $30. So if these economics are suddenly workable and the margins feasible for these companies, I have to assume that they've been marking up prices to exorbitant levels if not completely fleesing us over the years.

The point of the video your referencing was that the amount of ink stated on the packaging was no where near the amount of ink actually in the cartridge. That’s the problem. Using your Gillette analogy that would be akin to buying a ten pack of blades but there only being three in the package.

lol, I laughed at this video. There are always some that fail to understand that you get what you pay for. On another note, you raised a couple of interesting points. 1. Canon doesn’t color manage well from a Mac. This might explain why my monochrome prints come out with a reddish cast? Whereas my friend’s prints ( of my photos) from her Epson do not? 2. Are third party ink cartridges just as good as the brand ones? Is this why the printer companies frown upon third party inks because they lose money on the sale? I realise some might be saying “duh” at this point but it is a genuine question. Thank you

In another career years ago I worked at home centers/lumberyards; it became quite the task to calibrate people's idea of "expensive" as they had no clue what a "good" item should cost. Be it a toilet, 2x4 or window. A few never got it. Being out of motorcycles for many years I was shocked at how expensive they had gotten. Intellectually I knew it was going to happen, but living it was another matter (same can be said for housing prices now). Took a few years to recalibrate my motorcycle monitor. The next shock was camera lenses...... Most folks eventually get it, at least during that short time frame where they have to make a buying decision; but there are a few (thank goodness it's just a few) either never get it or don't want to and they really bring a rain cloud to your sunny day. sigh Used to say that retail would be great if it wasn't for the customers...

“Cheapness comes at a cost.” Well said.

Same with buying a car. If you buy cheap, you won't have a good fuel efficiency. If you buy a more efficient car, you will have to pay a higher price.

People want the moon on a stick. I've just filled up my ET-8550 with the rest of the ink that was left after the first fill. I'm glad I got a better printer as opposed to a £100 one. I've always been aware of starter cartridges even with a laser as you say it's been standard practice for at least 30 years. I don't even get why people use unbranded inks why not have a known "standard" and the peace of mind original ink will work with your printer! 😊

We have this cheap Samsung office printer at work that we use a lot. It often says that its out of ink, but still prints plenty. I once was able to get about 6 months of active use out of it with apparently no ink. Usually i get at least one or few after it says out of ink. I think this sort of thing is an obvious scam, but i doubt its there with more professional printers, but its about selling more of the expensive ink cartridges to cheap printers, often ink cartridge costs as much as the printer itself, which comes with ink, so there is no margin in selling those printers, all margin is in inks. Obviously a lot of margins in pro-300 for example is in inks, but with "professional" gear that sort scam just wont fly, and like you said ink is also used to maintain the printer etc. People tend to be vary about all printers because they heard what some companies do with the cheapest office printers.

Hi Keith, I'm looking at the canon pro graf pro 1000 for printing portature work. However, and it's a point I have to make regardless of the comments below which support your thoughts here. The cost of a full genuine canon replacement for this printer is roughly half the original cost of this printer new. You say you won't review third party inks, why not? A comparison, for say the above printer, which you've previously reviewed would be SO helpful, regardless of the risk of upsetting Canon. Love your reviews. Keep them up.

Ive watched some videos on here about the downsides of EcoTank type printers from Epson & Canon. Notably the ink pad issue once the sensor detects its full brings up an error code that disables the printer. Others claim alot of ink gets wasted not least by performing a flush to clean the heads should they dry up if the printer isnt being used often. Apparently the pads are not replaceable & will need sending in to be serviced. There are ways to reset the chip by a third party. Canon printers affected are models between 2017 & 2019, since then the more recent printers have a maintenance cartridge that you can swap out. Not sure about Epson.

Problem is, one manufacturer cuts just a tiny lil' off the printer price to get an advantage on the market, and calculates that into ink prices... the competition will be scratching their heads on how did they do that?! And they will eventually come to the conclusion that it cannot be done because economical and physical limitations, so they end up cutting the printer price as well, maybe even lower to get an advantage, and they raise ink prices... and this spirals into the situation that is now. Oh, the little anecdote has gone down decades ago might i add. You can all thank this to the stupid masses who persuaded manufacturers into all this, just as they ruin democracy, printers and the free market in general, aren't an exception either.

A lot of my friends have switched to Epson eco tank printers after getting fed up with cartridges. I on the other hand got an HP LaserJet from my local recycling center.

Instead of paying £50 for a home printer but spending a lot on replacement cartridges could I pay £200 but be able to use non own brand cartridges? No, all branded cartridges are expensive no matter what level of quality the printer is. If there was a printer available that could use any cheap cartridge off ebay I think that would be fair as you would be paying the manufacturing cost of the printer but that choice is not available. The difference between the cost of branded cartridges and ebay ones is huge. If you do not mind that a cartridge might not be as good as others but cost is the overriding consideration why can you not buy a printer at a honest cost and use whatever cartridge you want? I suspect that locking you to expensive cartridges brings a lot more money in and too many people would just pay an honest printer price and go there own way.

Would you recommend the Canon Maxify gx3050 over the Epson ET-2850 for photoprinting? Theyre basicly the same thing but the Canon printer uses pigment inks instead of dye inks and is 100$ more expensive...

What about those ink absorber pad counter? Do you think it is not a scam? I mean, technically, they could just make it easier for users to replace the pad and sell the pad for a reasonable price, right?

I owned many HP printers (lasers, inkjets), the last was a inkjet 2 in 1 printer + scanner. Used it for printing for some time, later the printer part was not needed (had a much cheaper to use laser instead, btw. also HP back then) but used the scanner part for some time more. Once after a driver update or I don't remember exactly when, the scanner just refused to work, it said it needs a new ink cartridge. The scanner needs ink! I remember reading the message twice to realize in what a scam I was taking part - on the s.cking end. I threw that thing immediately far away. about 10 years passed since then. it was such a vile and obvious punch to my naive brand loyalty - I'm not with many things so determined - I'm very careful to never have any HP products near me again.

My first impulse is to ask you if you are aware of something called "Stockholm Syndrome"? But that's a half-arsed joke. I can totally see your point, Keith. I don't even think we get the printers for free and we then have to pay them back through our ink purchases. Too many people buy these devices on impulse and hardly ever use them. These printers are absolutely not sold on a loss. It's almost a marginal business, though. If we look at the past 30 years of better inkjet printers than the matrix printers of the 80s, then Moore's Law has helped to make them cheaper by a lot. Let's face it, a Raspberry Pi with free Linux and a hat to control the print head and nozzles. So the IT side of the printer has become dirt cheap. The R&D went into the improvement of the pigments, enlargement of the colour spaces, improvement of longevity, and better print heads. When we buy an inkjet printer capable of professional quality larger prints, then we get ink cartridges that are not completely filled - because there's a "line" (tiny tube or hose) from the cartridge to the print head that needs to be filled before we can start printing. Having to buy all new cartridges for my old Epson 3880 - in the 500 currencies ballpark, say, 50% of a new printer's price (but with a meaningless to printing pigment ink reserve coming with that). And setting print resolution higher than 360 DPI, the ink consumption per square (area of paper) easily doubles. It's not cheap but the results are really great. The other day, I saw a video of a photographer taking his 4"*5" landscape shot to a drum scanner and then to printers. The printer used a photographic "laser printer" but that's not the Xerox type printer but rather an LCD projector with a laser lamp projecting the image on a (negative) photo paper that next needed to be processed like in the "old" days. That video is 4.5 years old and today I would not even consider this as an option.

Dear Mr. Cooper, Across the pond we understand when we’re being buggered. You are entitled to your dismissive attitude “just get over it” for yourself as you can pass on your costs to your customer. The rest of us might not be so lucky. Let’s look at the cost. Typically that ink is more expensive than Chanel No.5. In bulk that would be $9600.00 per gallon. That would buy you (at today’s high prices) almost 2000 gallons of gasoline or nearly 2300 gallons of milk. Kinda pricey don’t you think? Then we have the schemes. Why does a multi-function printer need to be loaded with three colors and black to enable the scanner? I can answer that. The marketing department thought it would be a good way to sell more consumables. The customer be damned. Why are many printer cartridges equipped with firmware that can render the cartridge unusable at the whim of the manufacturer? Oops, pesky marketing department. The list of shady printer tactics is a long one. I fully accept your argument in regard to ultra low priced printers. One should not expect to print out the human genome with the ink included with a bargain printer. Even after accepting that argument the reason so many people think injet consumables are expensive is because they bloody well are expensive. $9600 per gallon is expensive in most anyone’s book unless you’re ultra wealthy. Would you accept as a cost of doing business filling your device material as expensive as Chanel No.5? Oh wait, that’s right you do. It’s catching up with some of the manufacturers. They have successfully been sued in court and that should tell you all is not correct in printer world.

Are there any 3rd party inks for the 8550 that are comparable to OEM? Ink owl prices are tempting as i print a ton of photos. Have you ever tried them?

It is a scam when the printers are designed to breakdown after a certain amount of time.

"Ink scam - just get over it" should be a slogan in printer makers advertisements lol. I agree though its not really a scam when the printers are cheap and people will choose a cheaper printer over a more expensive one even if the cheaper one has more expensive inks because people only consider the immediate cost thats on the box price tag - so its the market and the consumers choices that got us the "ink scam" in the first place.

Photo Review in Australia tested ink usage for the Epson EcoTank 8500 and the Canon Pro-200. They found a *44% savings* on ink for the EcoTank. They also found the Pro-200 to have *more vibrancy and better tonal reproduction.* [The Pro-200 has more inks, including light cyan, light magenta and light gray. The 8500 has a pigment black ink, which the Pro-200 does not.]

I stopped using Photo printers because the A4 printer have no printer profiles and the ink dried between the prints. I will get a A2 printer in a few year to do B/W. I need to take some good pictures first.

It's a scam, because you get 20 documents out of $70 worth of cartridges. I really seriously doubt it costs $70 for that much ink. It probably costs HP like 10 cents for that $70 in cartridges. So, yeah that to me makes it a scam. It's also an environmental disaster. I bet most of these end up in landfills without hardly being used.

A great tutorial. Thank you. Certainly food for thought.

I think you are on point with this one Keith. However, I do get browned off when you buy a camera and the supplied card will only hold 1 RAW file. I guess its there to just prove the camera works.

Knowing what video triggered this is entertaining. It’s like you said…this isn’t old news BUT that being said, for people who are just out shopping and thinking they are getting a deal for their kids back to school items probably don’t know any better. This is why I bought a black and white laser printer over a decade ago and while I needed to replace the printer it was only because the printer was cheaper than the…I can’t remember the part now but it’s not the toner 🤔 I think it was the drum. Anyways…while it’s a dramatic title to the video he’s not entirely wrong to be trying to get the word out to as many people as possible about the true expense of inkjet printers. If you need office type prints and colour is truly not needed then I suggest a black and white laser printer…because honestly how many times do you need colour in your word documents 😂.

Thanks for doing a much better version of my original comments on the label-printing guy's video. Given his years of experience in photography reviews, he must have known better and just used this as an opportunity for sensationalism (and bashing canon as usual).

You test a lot of printers. Have you experienced any problems with the ink tank printers where sponge at the back of the printer would fill up with ink, and the printer would basically brick out?

brilliant, ta very much!

Hello, I can’t find the video you refer to which describes the mac/canon cheaper end printers. Could you post a link please?

I have a Canon IP6700D 6ink A4 printer but can’t get drivers for Windows 10/11. I tried installing the win7 drivers but no luck.

I do appreciate your "no nonsense" videos. 🙂

Get an old printer, over USB, that accepts third party cartridges (those without the DRM chip in them)

Good video Keith

Out of curiosity is there a legitimate reason that printer inks in general are so expensive? I understand that they are working on longevity and photo quality but hasn’t the ink technology stagnated, so R&D can’t be that drastic and it’s just material and production costs.

Keith, you just tell me which one to get and I’ll do it. Otherwise I’ll never print anything. This is killing me…

Brilliant! You are so right ! Caveat emporium! (Buyer beware) since Roman times same story. There is an old Eastern European story about the poor peasant villager who went to town and bought a pair of expensive boots. His neighbour asked him why he paid so much and he replied, "I'm too poor to buy cheap boots". Same story in away with what you are saying about you pay for what you get. You do well balanced and unbiased reviews. I work for a store that sells printers of all major manufacturers, your reviews are immensely useful. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm now a new subcriber