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Comment by clarkmoody | Hacker News Reader

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clarkmoody·

Here's how a printer company could gain massive market share:

- Open firmware and interfaces to the hardware

- Make a profit on the sale of the printer hardware

- Open spec for any ink manufacturer to create cartridges

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I don't think so, unless you're talking about professional-grade printers for businesses who print a LOT and look at the TCO of printers before buying them. Consumers buy literally the cheapest printer available at the store. Manufacturers have had to start shrinking the amount of ink in starter cartridges just to get consumers to buy any cartridges at all since otherwise people would buy a new printer instead of buying cartridges.

A printer that's actually profitable without any ink sales is going to cost hundreds of dollars more than any consumer would be willing to pay.

Here's how a printer company could go bankrupt immediately:

- Fixate on open firmware and force all third parties to open source their code (because yes, third party firmware vendors are necessary to develop a working printer system)

- Make a puny profit on durable hardware

- Miss out on the only true recurring revenue you can have

It’s like unlimited data cell plans, if one does it they’ll all have to do it.

I'd love to see it, but realistically that's not the world we're living in. 99% of people will just pick whatever box in the store that looks snazzy and is cheap.

There are probably a gazillion patents around printing, I wonder if it's even feasible to bring new hardware to market.

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