At 11:01 11/13/2001 +1300, Russell McMahon wrote:
>The cost difference is extreme and shows that HP are making an iniquitous
>profit on their disposables.

FWIW, the worst I've seen in this respect is a Lexmark printer. The printer
costs approx. 3 (original) cartridges...

On another, related note: there are these electric toothbrushes, which seem
to use a similar strategy. The funny thing was that I found those
replacement toothbrushes to be quite a lot cheaper in Brazil. This is a
strange thing because they are imported, and since Brazil has quite high
import taxes, imported goods are usually considerably more expensive than
in the origin country. My only explanation for this is that these
replacement parts are so cheap, that the final price is exclusively
determined by what they think they can charge -- and they seem to think
they can charge more in the US than in Brazil.

>All it needs is consumer awareness and consumer action.

Well said!

ge

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu