Chip crisis
Finally cheap ink? Why Canon needs to help customers outsmart their printers
Cheaper printing thanks to missing parts? Canon’s fate is good for consumers.
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The chip crisis has plagued the technology world for months. Canon printer cartridges are now also affected. Contrary to what was expected, however, this leads to more customer friendliness.
There is a lot of money to be made in printer ink. After all, it is one of the most expensive liquids in the world and lies at the liter price somewhere between 2000 and 8000 euros. For reasons of profit maximization, it is understandable that manufacturers do not like to let third-party suppliers spoil their prices in this business.
For customers, however, this has been a major annoyance for years: Large manufacturers such as HP, Canon, Epson or Brother provide their printer cartridges with small chips that are officially supposed to offer great functions such as the display of the correct fill level, but unofficially serve to enforce customer loyalty should. Because without this chip, printers often go on strike and make their use impossible. Refilling of used cartridges is actively prevented – once empty, the chip insists that there is no more ink.
Canon crisis as an opportunity
But what if higher powers more or less force corporations to refrain from doing that? This is exactly what is happening at the moment, because Canon can only deliver printer cartridges that do not have such a control chip due to a lack of components. And that’s very good news for customers.
So it is said officially on the part of the manufacturer that because of the persistent semiconductor shortage, consumer goods are currently being built without “special electronic components”. This has – and this sentence is extremely important – no impact on the quality of the printouts, but only leads to possible errors when reading out fill levels. The manufacturer then provides instructions in the event that the printer responds and complains about the lack of the chip.
In just a short support document, Canon has admitted that the copy protection chips, which certainly offer a few functions, are by no means necessary for the smooth operation of a printer. A small revolution when you consider that this very claim has been preached down like a prayer wheel for years and sometimes assumed absurd excesses – all in the name of print quality and security, of course.
Only recently there was in the US a lawsuit against Canon, because a Pixma MG6320 from the manufacturer deactivated the scanner function with an empty ink cartridge. If Canon loses in this case, they face a fine of up to five million US dollars. The fact that, due to a lack of components, it has now been indirectly confessed that the chips do not fulfill any operational functions, should not help much.
No will to change can be determined
So far, the support document says that the copy protection chips will only be missing temporarily. A rethinking at Canon or even in the industry has apparently not taken place. Other manufacturers have apparently not been affected so far. On request, about HP informed the star with the fact that there are currently no “noteworthy restrictions” in production.
The Canon competitor also emphasized that the chip fulfills important functions. It enables communication between printer and cartridge and protects against “product copies or forgeries”, which “can lead to potential quality and security risks.” It is remarkable that with the competition it inevitably does not lead to a catastrophe even without said component.