Canon sued for disabling scanner when printers run out of ink

If the average consumer can't be bothered to read a review before making a purchase, they're certainly not reading about firmware updates, or buying a secondhand Phaser.

Regular people go to a big box store, look at the items on the shelf, read the marketing material on the box, and fork out $79.99.

Yes, the functional difference between those items is staggering.

The difference in capacity alone between the HP all-in-one and the Xerox copier is literally the same in magnitude (60-80x) as the difference in capacity between a semi truck and a passenger vehicle.

These are different tools that literally do different things. You can't print 250 handouts with that HP all-in-one, and you can't transport 25,000 lbs of freight in a Camry.

A routine use-case for one of those large copiers is something like a person needing to give a 25 page document to 10 people on short notice. Not only is it not practical, it's not even possible with a consumer inkjet. A high end workgroup copier will spit them out in a short moment, already stapled (or bound!) and ready to go. Do you realize how silly it would be to make 10 people with 6-figure salaries stand around waiting for a consumer inkjet, even just one time? You'd be wasting thousands of dollars to save pennies.... and that's assuming you don't consequentially impact your ability to generate revenue. I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for a b2b sales team relying on a consumer inkjet to submit proposals on time.

> And the HW cost is justified, the SW cost is NOT

These aren't separate itemized costs when you buy a printer. You either get the Xerox printer with the Xerox software, or you get the HP Deskjet with the Deskjet software. You don't get to choose to use the DeskJet Printer with the Kerberos integration from the Xerox software. The teenager working at Best Buy is not going to be able to help you find a copier with software that is HIPAA compliant.

> I also take offense with he fact that the 3rd example does not even have a listed price - that is a BIG red flag for the habit of making the customer pay as much as possible.

It's an example of a ~$10000 copier. The price isn't listed because customers don't buy this type of machine directly through Xerox anyway. These types of purchases are done through formal proposals through Xerox vendors.

Large businesses don't buy things the way you do. They submit RFP/RFQs to vendors.

This is completely untrue.

I’ve done extensive price comparisons based the cost of paper and ink. For different brands and models of printer, I’ve done comparisons of the number of pictures you have to print to break even, compared to the cost of taking it to a shop and having them print it for you. I included discount online printers as well.

These comparisons include the cost of paying for all consumables—usually ink, but some printer models have additional consumables which you have to include. These comparisons also factor in the difference between the included inks and the ink refills (some printers ship with ink cartridges that are less full than the refills).

It is not hard to come out ahead, doing your own prints. When I was doing this comparison, it was only economical to go to the store if you were sporadically printing the smallest picture sizes. For a medium picture size like 8"x10", you could be using high-quality paper and inks at home and still spend less money than bargain online print services.

As a rough estimate, printing yourself with high-quality inks and papers can come out to around $0.02 per square inch, or $1.60 for an 8"x10" photo. Right now, an 8x10 is $3.56 on Shutterfly, or $2.99 on Snapfish. That’s a pretty stark difference.

So you save about $1.40 per photo, and you can use this to calculate how long it takes to amortize the cost of the printer hardware. For a $250 printer, like a reasonable low-end Epson or Canon photo printer, that’s just 180 prints.

YMMV. I expect most people don’t print photos at all these days, and only put photos on their phone. I personally don’t see the point in printing out 3.5"x5" photos if I own a tablet or phone with a screen that large. So, my expectation is that people who print photos are making albums of family photos, or perhaps they’re amateur photographers or digital artists. Someone with a passing interest in photography or making photo albums, who prints, can easily blow through 180 prints to break even on a printer purchase. If you just have a few picture frames around the house you want to fill, obviously just go to a shop.

When I purchased my printer, I was comparing against more expensive local photo labs, rather than the cheapest online services. I was also comparing 11"x14" prints, which typically cost around $10 each, versus $3 at home. The purchase of a $700 printer is amortized after only 100 such prints, in this scenario.

I haven’t installed drivers or software for any printer (inkjet or laser) I’ve used in the past like 10-12 years. They just work across all my devices automatically (windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, android). So no idea how Canon’s software is.

The days of needing drivers & manufacturer specific software are long gone at this point unless you have a very weird or specific setup. Heck, I can even scan without any special software. They all still prompt you to install their junk in the manuals, but you don’t need to.

Color laser printers don't have acceptable quality for photos, IMO. I used to work as a tech in a lab with tons of these printers and, unless laser printing technology has changed a lot, it just doesn’t cut it for photos.

I mean, you can see the photos, and they’re clear enough, it's just nowhere near the quality that you can get for the same price.