The great philosopher Snake Plissken once said that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and that is especially true in the universe of printers. These sinister devices can incorporate new features and present advanced designs, but at the end of the day they continue with their old, bad habits. Attention once again turns to Epson, which received a bit of fire on Twitter for its "famous" sponge system, the early locking of the printer, and the impossibility of users obtaining spare parts...
Do We Really Own Our Printers?
This is a classic story that has repeated itself for years and even served as the starting point for a famous documentary: An Epson printer is running without major issues... until it stops. The software warning indicates that "certain parts" inside the printer have reached the end of their useful life, but in reality, it's not about wear and tear. The printer is programmed to self-lock after exceeding a fixed number of prints.
One of the latest victims of this "strategy" was Mark Tavern, a professor at the University of New Haven. Apparently, his wife owns a very expensive Epson printer that simply announced the end of its useful life and stopped. The only options? Pay for a technical service, or buy another unit. With over 5,000 likes and nearly 800 retweets, the question is obvious: Why does this keep happening?
The Official Explanation
Epson's support page (which received some modifications in recent days) offers the same canned response: The "parts" are nothing more than a series of sponges responsible for "collect, distribute, and contain" the ink that isn't used during the standard printing process. The original printer configuration, cleaning cycles, and borderless photo printing generate waste, and that has to go somewhere. Otherwise, the printer could suffer an ink leak (which, by the way, is a horrible event).
In its latest update, Epson adds that "most users" won't see the message under "normal usage scenarios", and today it offers four alternatives: a "one-time reset tool" that will help its American customers continue printing for a limited time, contact numbers for a "sponge replacement service", a link to find local "certified technicians", and a recycling program.
Epson Is Not Alone...
Unfortunately, these practices are not exclusive to Epson. Some of our readers will certainly remember the HP scandal with its blocking of full cartridges for users who abandoned the subscription system, while Canon had to fight its own DRM because new official cartridges with alternative parts (courtesy of the semiconductor shortage) were rejected by printers.
YouTube is full of tutorials explaining how to extract, clean, and reuse the sponges in many models, but that's only half the equation. The print counter also needs to be reset, and the apps available on the web have a very dubious provenance.
Epson's latest "change" is nothing more than a sanitary band-aid on a bullet wound. The company offers no repair manuals, no spare parts, and no official tools (hardware or software). If the famous sponges were as easy to obtain and replace as an empty cartridge, the user experience would be completely different.
Source: Ars Technica
