Little Things That Irk You VII: Seething Pains

[fishbowlhead]

I don't understand how the printing industry has gotten away with its ludicrous practices it has for so many decades,

a: being the biggest rip off for ink & toner since, anything.
b: being thee most wasteful exercise in the use of resources I've ever come across.

I've got a canon lbp7100Cn. A good laser printer which i use for printing odd product labels, stuff we don't sell huge amounts of where getting 20'000 printed by a printing firm isn't justifiable.

Full set of toners from canon £200, i can buy an effing LAPTOP for that!!!!! plus all the toner cartridges are junk when used, seriously, all that plastic and resources that go into making the cartridge just thrown in the bin.

I just buy the Chinese copy's for it now off ebay, no difference in print quality and £9 a pop.

[Dogg Thang]

I don't understand how the printing industry has gotten away with its ludicrous practices it has for so many decades.

The Illuminati.

[QualityChimp]

The Illuminati.

You joke, but did you know a business cartel manufacturing light bulbs got together to make them with planned obsolescence to increase repeat sales and maximise profits?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

[Dogg Thang]

You joke, but did you know a business cartel manufacturing light bulbs got together to make them with planned obsolescence to increase repeat sales and maximise profits?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

I did not know that. That's very interesting. Not massively surprising, unfortunately. But definitely interesting!

[QualityChimp]

I first heard about it when somebody exploring an abandoned lightbulb factory came across the documents stipulating against long life bulbs. WWII made it impossible to co-ordinate when member countries were at war and the cartel fell apart.

There is a light bulb that has been running for over 100 years.

https://priceonomics.com/the-mysterious-case-of-the-113-year-old-light-bulb/

There is also evidence of printer planned obsolescence.
Epson have a "kill chip" that stops it printing after a certain time, but a simple program can reset it.

https://therestartproject.org/design/triumphing-together-against-planned-obsolescence/

[cutmymilk]

News this morning. Someone from Which? was saying that there are fake reviews on TripAdvisor. They then had a TripAdvisor guy on, who they asked "Which? have said there are fake reviews on your website, would you agree with that statement?"

The guy said "Not at all. There is no evidence of that."

I just watched an adult man, presumably of normal cognitive faculties, lie on TV with a straight face. Like specifically say something quantifiably false to even a cursory check.

All e-commerce websites have fake reviews. Like, I get that the guy might've intended to say "the fakes are a small number" or something but he didn't say that. He suggested there are "no" fake reviews. Utter, utter twat.

I didn't watch the whole interview and I suspect he went on to clarify his position, but even so, very, very poor form.

Yeah, but the question was rubbish and extreme in the other direction.

[eastyy]

I saw this last year


Funny thing was speaking to my dad about this and mentioned he had a Spectrum printer that he used a lot back in the day and it never had issues but it was a thermal printer

[Dogg Thang]

This is an example where the secondary revenue stream has become the primary revenue stream and that taints any product. If your business is selling printers and that's your primary revenue stream, you're going to try to sell the best printers you can... to a point (you want to build in a lifespan to sell more printers). But when selling ink becomes your primary revenue stream, now your purpose in creating a printer is to put the customer in a situation where they will buy more ink. Your business is now tainted and you're not always (or ever) working with your customer satisfaction in mind but instead looking for ways to continue gouging them.

Thankfully that will never happen with games... oh...

I had one of those printers that would use up all the colour ink printing black and then refuse to even try to print if it registered that one colour was running low. It ended up in a skip pretty quickly. I think it was Epson.

[Asura]

Thankfully that will never happen with games... oh...

On my 12th birthday, I received a free Gilette Mach3 razor with 2 blades. It arrived in the post, from Gillette themselves. I think it's because I was on some kind of distribution list; I won some bits and pieces from scratchcards when I was a kid. I thought it was nice of them; how naive I was (though admittedly it was marketing GENIUS).

[endo]

I had one of those printers that would use up all the colour ink printing black and then refuse to even try to print if it registered that one colour was running low. It ended up in a skip pretty quickly. I think it was Epson.

Mine is an Epson and it does things like that. Like it'll flatly refuse to print something in just black and white, because one or more colours have run out, even though black and white would be totally fine and it's my decision anyway **** you Epson you twats!!!!

[Zaki]

You joke, but did you know a business cartel manufacturing light bulbs got together to make them with planned obsolescence to increase repeat sales and maximise profits?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

Looks like the lights went out in 1939.

[QualityChimp]

My A-Level Economics teacher was convinced Gillette own a patent for a cream that stops stubble growth, but it's kept in their vaults as they make more money from blades.

Talking about Gillette and business monopolies, they dominated the market for years, but a few of their patents have recently expired and the like of Dollar Shave Club have taken a chunk of their market.

Gillette responded by suing and settling out of court earlier this year after saying DSC were infringing their patented technology like carbon edges and chromium coating.

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/03/29/p-g-settles-lawsuit-with-unilever-s-dollar-shave.html

As the market shrinks (aging population, beards and hairy armpits more acceptable) and their piece of the shrinking pie gets smaller, I imagine it's enough to drive "innovation" and further lawsuits are ahead.

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/11/18134456/best-razor-gillette-harrys-dollar-shave-club

Side note: Saturday Night Live predicted the triple-blade razor way back in 1975!

https://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75atriple.phtml

[fishbowlhead]

HP also had a nuclear reactor for “research purposes”, obviously they were known for pc’s & printers but their main profits came from cartridges.

Wtf did hp need a nuclear reactor for? It was never really disclosed.

[Zaki]

Wtf did hp need a nuclear reactor for?

Haven't the faintest inkling.

[Anpanman]

There is also evidence of printer planned obsolescence.
Epson have a "kill chip" that stops it printing after a certain time, but a simple program can reset it.
https://therestartproject.org/design...-obsolescence/

I read somewhere that PSP batteries charging in the PSP unit have a charge count and after hitting that number they die. The Datel chargers circumvented that.

Seen videos on YT where consumer camera shutters die exactly on the estimated shutter life count.