Slappy, if you feel my reply as defensive than you missed my intention by miles, hope your navigation is better...
Why, as you try to tell us here, should we all support the fat industry to get bigger and bigger and force us to eat what they put on the table? It was already 1978 when I had an argument with BMW (which I actually won in court....) that I had to buy a whole headlight unit also only a glass was broken...
There are plenty of cartridges out there who are NOT a print head as you try to make us believe here. The manufacturer who has integrated the printhead to the cartridge, Epson, has also an enclosed a feature which makes it (almost) impossible to refill at all, so a new cartridge is a requirement once it is empty.
Your comparision of a urine destillery may fit your personal point of view; I assume that for most, if not all of us, and certainly for me, this verbal excursion is completely inadequate and reflects surely more the area you are living in.
20 U$ is an excellent deal...maybe for you with a decent salary. The production costs are well below 3 U$ as you may be able to find out after doing some homework.
You are right in assuming that a market price is based on consumer demands and mass production. But you forgot something, if there is no competion, and there is almost none as the cartridges do only fit with one manufacturer and here often only one particular model, than the manufacturer has all the power to keep the price at it's desired level.
Prices at a more reasonable level will make the refillers think twice before they start to go through all the hassle and stains.
And reasonable would be anything below 10 U$.
Your conclusion that refillers are responsible for the high priced (forgot, you called it reasonable) cartridges is far off any reality as I have mentioned before. Buying more new cartridges will not lead a monopolist to reduce the price but fill shareholders pockets.
Thanks for the educational statement in your last sentence. I highly appreciate all these hints as it will certainly help me and others to have a closer look to what we buy in the future to save a bit more environment. At least the refillers can proudly look forward to have started with something you obviously did not even think of. Question is, who insults whom?
And this is the end of this discussion for me as I, unfortunately, cannot refill my cartridges at all....
Thanking you for your kind attention.
Last edited by FL310; 13th May 2002 at 00:10.