Another article, this one in the The New York Times, mentions ink refilling stations. It covers most of the same things that were in the WSJ article, but this time you can actually read it for yourself.

This article is neat for us because it mentions our archrivals HP and their San Diego labs, which house their “print head architects.” Ironically the location of those labs is mere minutes from the Pacific Ink headquarters. Typically we spend our days glaring out the windows at each other. Anyways, this article is a little more interesting than the WSJ one because it focuses more on the ink itself and also what refilling can mean to an average consumer. Additionally, it focuses on HP, their lawsuits, and their profits on ink. They write:

What it may boil down to is how offended you are that Hewlett-Packard sells a $30 cartridge that cost it an estimated $3.50 to make (not including the hundreds of millions of dollars it spent on research and development of the technology).

An interesting point that HP does deserve something in return for their years of development up until this point, but I doubt that too many consumers will shed any tears for all that money HP has poured into R&D when it actually comes time to buy ink. The company that innovates doesn’t always win (see: Apple vs. Bill Gates) and just because they have developed a product in the past doesn’t necessarily mean they can keep overcharging for it as long as they want.

New Printer Cartridge or a Refill? Either Way, Ink Is Getting Cheaper [NY Times]