So it’s finally official. Printing at home is becoming more expensive, which seems odd to me since print related companies should be spending more time adding value to print products rather than sponging every last cent they can for profits.

Everyone knows that inkjet cartridges are ridiculously overpriced, but now we know that HP has been shrinking HP cartridges dramatically each year since 2010 thanks to the research by the HP Ink Cartridges blog.

Yep, those ink guys were becoming suspicious and decided to do a little research.

This blogger (adminky) removed the top of the cartridge with a handsaw and as you can see from the picture below the hydrophobic sponge fills the cartridge totally, just as anyone would have expected. He then took another HP 350, the same cartridge but this time the manufacturers date was 2012 on the cartridge, and removed the top in the same way as before and could not believe what he was looking at. The hydrophobic sponge inside the 2012 cartridge was only half the size!!

Next, them boys began opening other models of ink only the find the same sort of results. Despite smaller sponges, I doubt prices have gone down.

No wonder it seems like printing is so darn expensive to do from home. BECAUSE IT IS! Curse you HP. Curse you.

Is it fair to diss HP just because the sponge is smaller? I don’t fully understand the inner workings of a cartridge manufacturing plant. To me, it would be more interesting to test how many pages print from each cartridge. I’m looking forward to future studies.