this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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Cory Doctorow talks about how printer ink is the most expensive liquid you can buy as a consumer. More expensive than pure bred racing horse semen (gross comparison though). He suggests a response to US tariffs being that Canada disregards printer firmware copyright and undercuts the US market by offering 3rd party printer ink cartridges via illegal reverse engineering.
I wish they would and bring the tech here. You should be able to buy generic and refill.
There’s libraries but not everyone can easily get there
I bought a printer for my dad and the refills cost more than the printer. It's built into the business model. We're in the age of the capitalist monopoly squeeze. The squeeze continues until it's squeezed dry. Same reason there's a huge number of computers heading to landfill due to windows 11 artificial hardware requirements.
It sucks. It’s going to get bad when a significant chunk of customers can no longer afford to buy - they could raise the prices but at some point infinite growth is sustainable.
I’m only hoping refurbishing places like Computerbank can salvage a lot of them. Things like Linux and Libre Office will be lifelines to older and poorer people.
If I could just get organised enough and had the mind for it I’d be all over FOSS myself