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Roula Khalaf, editor of FT, chooses her favorite story in this weekly newsletter.
I have to make a strange confession. I love my printer. I love him with the wild eyes of a convert that wants everyone to know about it. (Yes, I’m a good party at dinner, why are you asking?) I’m not the only one. My machine-will boring black and white brother Laser Laser devoted to the following. It’s not because it does anything special. That’s because it’s just. . . works.
This phenomenon – people who are pathetic grateful in 2025 that they have found a product that does what to do – tells an interesting story of capitalism and consumer psychology at the time of technological changes.
I only love my printer because in the past I have had so many terrible: ink at a price of champagne; clogged nozzles; paper jams; Binding problems. In the US -in people hate printers so much that you can pay to get in in “Rage Room” and break them. Many have given up the idea that they can ever be anything than awful. “Stop expecting the printers” just to work “,” invited the gloomy article to the New York Times In 2016. “Most of you will hate something about any printer you buy and you can’t do anything about it.” Even printer manufacturers know the result. 2023 HP produced ad From an angry man who threw out a printer from the table, with a line of “Made to be less hatred.”
At the root of dissatisfaction is the business model “Britvica and knives” in the industry, which includes the sale of a tinter-mile printer very cheap and then earnings from inkrt patrons with high marina ink. Cheap hardware is more likely to be light and unreliable, which is angry with customers. Group Tint containers also rage customers, especially when they are printer companies Try to stop Instead, from the use of cheaper ink of other brands.
But if consumers see companies as villains in this story, then companies probably see consumers who do not want to buy their ink in the same way. As the HP -Aa Enrique Lores executive said in an interview With the CNBC last year: “We lose money on the hardware, we earn supplies.
Is there an escape from this loop of mutual disappointment? It is strange that this is not the market that lacks the possibilities. Laser printers like mine (other models and brands are available) use a toner, not ink, which is less problematic and do not dry if you rarely use it. They are a little more expensive and the toner looks expensive on paper, but it lasts for a long time (I just had to replace my first cartridge after five years.) Don’t print in color, but when I want photos, I just order them online. Other people speak high about the ink printers, which costs a lot to buy, but almost nothing to run.
Even in the world of ab Some cannot afford to spend more in advance, of course. For others, the overload of information and choices could be part of the problem. Psychological study propose That when people are facing difficult decisions, they tend to border for the default. Add to this a built -in pessimism that whispers “all the printers are trash anyway, so I can go to the cheapest.”
One way to stop this sad story would be for people to stop completely having printers. This is truly the way things go, thanks to a world where you can get more and more through the screen, from signing the contract to boarding on the flight. In your own 2024 Annual ReportHP noted that “continuous secular challenges are connected, among other things, reduced demand for printing products and solutions as a result of increased digitization and hybrid work.”
But as the home printer market declines, the rage dynamics could intensify. Customers who do not think they will need to use a printer will often be tempted to seek the cheapest option ink-jet. Their rare use of ink-lip will mean that nozzles are more likely to be clogged. In the meantime, the fact that these customers do not print much with their lower cost machines means that companies could feel the need to increasingly aggressively lock them in their ink and push new products like subscriptions, which people also complain about.
With an apology to Antonia Gramsci, the old world is dying, and the new world has not been born yet. One day we won’t need home printers at all. In the meantime, just buy a black and white laser and thank me later.
