Epson Ecotank Printers

by Izzy Goodman

According to articles in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, Epson is on a mission to kill the ink cartridge with their Ecotank printers. These printers will come with a generous supply of ink and can be refilled from ink bottles which will cost only $13. This will make printing more affordable and put the compatible manufacturers out of business.

The article completely misses the point of the printer industry's business model. For years they operated like drug dealers, hooking people on cheap printers so they could rip them off on expensive cartridges. A cartridge with 7ml of ink sold for upwards of $20. That works out to about $10,000 a gallon. Can you say greedy? They protected their obscene profits with several methods.

1) "convincing" some stupid judge that printer companies deserve special government protection against compatible manufacturers (funny how there are no such laws protecting any other industry. You can buy any gas for your car - it doesn't have to be from the manufacturer) even though this protection violates federal law (the Moss-Magnuson act of 1975 which states a company can not force you to buy their consumables in order to keep the warranty.)

2) putting expiration dates on the chips to prevent refilling (HP). This one backfired because people bought brand new, genuine HP cartridges and some failed right out of the box when the expiration date was reached.

3) putting serial numbers on the chips (Epson T220, T786, T410, T288, 702, 802) and not allowing the printer to use the same serial number twice. This means if you take a cartridge out and put it back in (which Epson even tells you to do to solve some problems), it won't work. This also makes the cartridges even more expensive to manufacture.

Now we are suddenly supposed to believe that Epson has become a generous company and is worried about their customers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The very fact that HP and Canon have also started making these types of printers prove there is a profit motive, since HP has never had its customers' interests in mind.

First, these "new" printers have already been out for several years overseas where they have garnered numerous complaints. Second, they cost about 200% more than standard printers. You can find Canon and Brother printers for about $150. The Ecotank printers start at about $379. That means you are paying about $200 up front for the ink! Epson just figured out how to rip you off up front rather than wait a few years. Maybe they were worried that the printer might break down before you spent $200 on ink so this guarantees they'll get their money even in that situation. Would you pay $40,000 for a $20,000 car if it included a thousand gallons of gas? Also remember that if you pay $150 for a printer and it lasts a year or two, you got your money's worth, but if you pay $379 and it dies after the warranty, what good does all that unused ink do? Why buy an inkjet for $379? For that amount you can buy a multi-function color laser printer! And how many people are ready to spend $379 no matter how good the printer appears to be?

Here's another thing to ponder: if you have to return a printer to epson, they tell you to take the cartridges out first. It's not a good idea to ship printers with the ink still inside because it can slosh around and damage the internals. What about these Ecotanks? How will you return one for service even under the warranty? Will you first have to go through some complicated procedure to flush them out? Will the replacement be sent with new ink bottles?

The biggest proof that these printers are a great deal for the companies and a terrible deal for you is that HP joined in with its own GT ink tank printers. The biggest pirate in the printer industry who is still facing class-action lawsuits over their business practices has decided to launch ink tank printers. You can bet they are doing this to inflate their already obscene profits at your expense. The "economics" of these new printers makes no sense for anyone but the manufacturers.

Are Ecotank printers programmed to fail?

A neighbor bought an Ecotank printer and for some reason, never unpacked it. Three years later, they asked me to set it up. The printer lasted ONE DAY! They very next day, it shut off and refused to turn back on. I first assumed something happened to blow the power supply (even though no other appliance in that house was affected). I opened the printer and measured the voltage in a number of places. It registered the correct (40 watts) the power supply was supposed to be outputting. So it was not a power supply issue. I suspect the printer it programmed to die after 3 years. That would make perfect sense for Epson because at that point, the customer only have to buy only cheap ink, which would cut into their profits. They would want to force the customer to buy another printer. But would someone be stupid enough to buy another Ecotank after having been ripped off so badly?