Is Cartridge Refilling Dying?

[wilko]

This forum has been brilliant for helping anyone who wanted to have a go at resisting manufacturers like Canon ripping us off with inflated cartridge prices.

Canon first off all brought out chipped cartridges for the ip4200 and then introduced lower capacity cartridges after the ip4500 and then brought out opaque cartridges and finally ended it all with CL-551 carts.

Unfortunately for printer manufacturers, most of the public no longer print out photos but prefer to view them on their various mobile devices.

It looks like most homes will have a basic Wi-Fi MF printer which will be little used and not replaced for some time.

Epson seems to have seen the problematic future and has brought out a range of expensive but cheap to refill printers.

Personally, I think it's too late for Epson to reclaim the lost public but I would love them to do so.

As for Canon. I think this company deserves all it gets. IMO it has produced the best inkjet printers over the years but has done everything it can to ensure that it's customers only buy inflated priced Canon cartridges.

All good things come to an end and I wonder if the amateur refilling days are about to end.

Professional photographers and photo dig and advertising companies will continue to need quality printers but the best value printers like the ip4500 will become a thing of the past.

It's amazing how things change

In my time the UK top 20/40 singles chart was looked forward to every Sunday. No doubt it was the same in the States. Everyone at the time wanted a desktop PC and a printer.

Nowadays youngsters do everything they want on a smartphone or tablet, occasionally printing out on their printer. Chart songs are played through Spotify.

Most households will have a basic MF Printer which will print out occasional documents.

Whatever happens, I console myself with the thought that we were the generation that helped to bring colour printing to the masses.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

So, how do you think that complicated, highly engineered, amazing thing you call your inkjet printer is priced so low? You may feel ripped off on the cartridges, but did you write Canon a letter thanking them for selling their printers so inexpensively?

Mr. Gillette of razor fame figured out this business model a hundred years ago with his new safety razor. He even gave them away, making up the loss with the sales of the blades. There is nothing wrong with this, blades or inks, in any way.

If you refill your cartridges, you get the best of both worlds for a bit of hassle and care.

 

[barfl2]

Paul Verizzo is correct high technical quality at low prices but surely the problem is not the re-fillers but the compatibles who seem able to overcome every obstruction the various makers try to make. Wilko is also correct re-filling seems to be on the wane. 1. because it has become so much more difficult and 2. The use of modern storage devices.

You rarely see anybody asking for help re-filling the latest models like you used to. But of course commercial business will still need both standard and large printers which are sold at much higher prices and the larger ink ink tanks will appeal to this market. Perhaps this is the market they intend to exploit.

The States have always seen the keen re-fillers obtain several printers with the older easy re-fill carts and store them. Theirs is the largest market and they were sold originally at much lower prices than in Europe. It was smart to do this and those persons will be able to carry on for years.

Just a thought many will no doubt disagree

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Paul Verizzo is correct high technical quality at low prices but surely the problem is not the re-fillers but the compatibles who seem able to overcome every obstruction the various makers try to make. Wilko is also correct re-filling seems to be on the wane. 1. because it has become so much more difficult and 2. The use of modern storage devices.

You rarely see anybody asking for help re-filling the latest models like you used to. But of course commercial business will still need both standard and large printers which are sold at much higher prices and the larger ink ink tanks will appeal to this market. Perhaps this is the market they intend to exploit.

The States have always seen the keen re-fillers obtain several printers with the older easy re-fill carts and store them. Theirs is the largest market and they were sold originally at much lower prices than in Europe. It was smart to do this and those persons will be able to carry on for years.

Just a thought many will no doubt disagree

Can't see any reason to disagree, barfl2. I hope to keep my CLI-8 iP4500 and CLI-42 PRO-100 going for many, many years. And I have a backup iP4300.

 

[martin0reg]

...
Unfortunately for printer manufacturers, most of the public no longer print out photos but prefer to view them on their various mobile devices....

Maybe...but more "digital" viewing does not mean less prints ... would be interesting to read some facts about the volume of prints on the whole (including minilabs)

It looks like most homes will have a basic Wi-Fi MF printer which will be little used and not replaced for some time...

Isn't that just the way it has always been? For the same reason: printing photos at home - compared to going to a photo shop or minilab - is more expensive with OEM material and/or more time-consuming with refilling and color management.

Epson seems to have seen the problematic future and has brought out a range of expensive but cheap to refill printers...

The epson ITS (=ciss) printers seem to sell like hot cakes...at least IF they are to buy in you region..
Epson are offering these because the refilling sales rates are growing, I think.

PS: the real DIY refilling (what this site is all about) might not grow or even reduce because it is a (possibly complicated) hobby of a few...but there are the many 3rd party cartridges which are spoiling epson's (and canon's and HP's) sales rates and profit od OEM carts...

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Maybe...but more "digital" viewing does not mean less prints ... would be interesting to read some facts about the volume of prints on the whole (including minilabs)


Isn't that just the way it has always been? For the same reason: printing photos at home - compared to going to a photo shop or minilab - is more expensive with OEM material and/or more time-consuming with refilling and color management.



The epson ITS (=ciss) printers seem to sell like hot cakes...at least IF they are to buy in you region..
Epson are offering these because the refilling sales rates are growing, I think.

PS: the real DIY refilling (what this site is all about) might not grow or even reduce because it is a (possibly complicated) hobby of a few...but there are the many 3rd party cartridges which are spoiling epson's (and canon's and HP's) sales rates and profit od OEM carts...

I think home photo printing is on the Big Wain. Why print photos when quantity on your "device" is more important that selection and quality? In my small city of 50,000 plus surrounding county, Walgreens has shut all the minilabs except one. The closed ones are now drop-off sites. They charge really bottom line prices, you can upload the scans, you get an index sheet. Yet, peeps ain't doing very much film, bottom line.

Why print photos to pass around when you can pass around your i-Device instead?

I think home printers will go back to whence they started: Document, text, some marketing materials maybe. Combined with a fax, there ya go, all ya need.

I think photo printing will become a niche part of computer printing. Office/home office/MP printers have been able to crank out stunning photos for quite awhile, superior to the photo printers of some ten or twelve years ago. Best of all, pretty much on "Set it and forget it," types of interactions. No ICC etc. annoyances necessary.

Like vinyl recording, the wet darkroom refuses to die. But the latter has far fewer film, paper, and chemistry options compared to only a decade ago. I think inkjet photo printing is headed for the same niche category insofar as the general public.

Not so much for wide format and the art communities.

Meanwhile, I'm having a blast with the 16mm B&W and Kodachrome reels from my father and his father. 1927 through 1947. Bought a late 1950's B&H Filmosound projector and got it running. Shades of junior high school AV geek! (To say nothing of my New Wave and Big Band vinyl collection!)

 

[3dogs]

Who would have thought that animal mineral and vegetable mixed with oil would survive the caves., but it did, and for the same reason the paper and the inks will survive too.
If one were to seriously measure human creativity and spirit against the likes of Walmart you would need to believe that 90% of our peoples are nuff nuffs. Fortune smiles on us and there are those that shop elsewhere, dont live in a perpetual fog, and aspire to things of quality and beauty over cheap and nasty.
As for cartridges...who knows what delivery system will be in use five years from now. My father was born in 1916, just yesterday really, what changes he saw, and would be bewildered by our proximity via computer and screen.
I left school in 1963 never saw a computer or mobile phone, talked to my school friends, face to face. My children are lost offline.
I believe the cart will live till an alternative arrives.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

I looked up "nuff nuffs" and I found, "Passive, led around by their nose rings consumers without a sense of moral or social obligations or having a whit of creativity, hell bent for living a life of the lowest common denominator. See: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/" Was my source close?

 

[3dogs]

I looked up "nuff nuffs" and I found, "Passive, led around by their nose rings consumers without a sense of moral or social obligations or having a whit of creativity, hell bent for living a life of the lowest common denominator. See: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/" Was my source close?

Spot on!

 

[The Hat]

The amount of home printing is growing not decreasing, from children and students alike that don’t want to go to the school/campus to printout their home studies and projects.

This is where Canon was aiming their current all new compact Wi-Fi desktop printers at, they're cheap quick and easy to operate, just click and the sheets pop out right beside them, no need to get up off their bums and if it breaks, get daddy to buy another one.

As for the demise of the wet room, well they were only used by a very small minority who could afford them, and now most of these gurus have moved on and found the Pro printers which are far more versatile than any wet room could ever have been.

There are many more professionals using printers today than ever stood inside a wet room and they continue to be intrigued and delighted with their new found loves, which some of them might even involve their kids in, one day.

As far as vinyl records are concerned it’s not so much that they are scarce and wanting to make a comeback but finding something decent to listen to them on is almost impossible, and by not having a proper system makes nostalgia just about null and void.

If you cherish your film collection that much, it would be very advisable to convert it to digital while it’s still visually legible and playable before it too becomes extinct.

As far as Fax machines are concern I didn’t know they were still in daily use any more.

That was a most enjoyable trip down memory lane, thank you..