Printers have been a terrible product for 30 years. The fault is Nash’s balance

Let’s go back to 1949. A young mathematician named John Nash Find an original idea for your thesis at Princeton University. Game theory already existed thanks to the previous works (1944) by John Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, but the von Neumann model focused on zero -sum games (one player wins, the other loses).

Nash had a spark of genius in proposing that in any game there should be at least one point where no player could improve his situation by changing his strategy unilaterally.

Formalized that idea in a short two -page article (‘Equilibrium Points in N-Person Games‘) In January 1950, and with it revolutionized history. Including printers.

Is the printer the worst technological product in history?

And is that the printers is an almost manual example to apply the call Nash balance. These types of products have been following – at least, to a large extent – the economic model of the machin and blades: you sell cheap the first, but face the second.

Consumers know that when we buy an ink printer, the price will be economical, almost ridiculous. But we also have assumed that ink and cartridges for those printers will be very expensive. And if they are not, what will end up being is Ink subscription… either to the printers themselves.

Not only that: in the last 30-40 years we have seen how printers have become-probably- The worst technological product in history. It is no longer only that printers can get stuck or work erratically.

The real problem is terrifying form in which manufacturers have protected their business, preventing in all possible ways that users can for example use Compatible cartridges and tonniers of third parties.

Nash’s balance explains very well why manufacturers do what they do. Imagine two great manufacturers such as HP and Canon with two options:

1. Expensive and blocked cartridges (current model)
2. Cheap and open cartridges (which allow competition and lower prices)

Given this situation, HP and Canon managers know that three types of market situations can be found:

• If both keep expensive and blocked cartridges: they earn a lot
• If one “opens” its cartridges and lowers prices and the other remains closed: the one that opens loses income and the one that is still closed earns more … or the opposite. Whatever happens, one will end up winning a lot and the other losing a lot.
• If both open: there is strong competition again, but both win less

Given that scenario, manufacturers make an inevitable business decision: they close their cartridge technology and sell it face Because that’s what gives more benefits to everyone.

Nash’s balance is fully fulfilled here: it describes a stable point for each player (company) but does not ensure that the result is the best for the whole. Collectively and from the social point of view, the optimal would be to open the technology and lower prices: companies would earn less, but the market would be larger and fair.

Reality, as we know, is very different. But maybe that reality can change.

We need a “Tesla printer”

The printer user has therefore 30 years constant bleeding which translates into an exaggerated expense in cartridges and also in an erosion of time and productivity. What has happened with printers is something extraordinary: We have normalized that printers are almost more a problem than a solution.

And that is why we have a panorama in which there is a great opportunity for a revolution in the printers market. This segment is hungry for an ethical disruptive: the manufacturer who abandons the current Nash balance can change everything here.

It is a mature field in which an innovative based on transparency and reliability could not only capture the market, but even redefine it. What the market needs is a kind of “Tesla printer”.

And we refer to a printer that causes in this segment what Tesla managed to provoke in the car industry: a machine that has a great design, a reliable operation and that is also designed to last. But above all, that offers an alternative to current printers and their dictatorial philosophy with cartridges.

Here are some projects underway. The project The Open Printerfrom the Parisian startup Open Tooks, is intended as A repair ink printer, Open Sourceand that focuses its operation on reparable cartridges. Its creators claim that this printer is created “with standard mechanical components and with modular parts”, which theoretically simplifies its assembly, modification and repair.

In fact, the Open Printer works with a small Raspberry Pi W plate as an operations center. There are no proprietary firmware or cartridges with DRM. It is designed to use HP63 cartridges (HP 302 in Europe) both in black and in color but they serve both those of HP and third parties. And not only can you print on AAR or A4 folios, but even in 27 mm paper rolls.

There are no details about its price or availability for the moment, but the idea will not be launched directly, and will first be launched as a collective financing project. We know for previous failures (and frauds) that such financing models It has its risksbut in this case that option seems reasonable and we only have to wait for the best of the project.

That may not be the only launch in this regard, and in fact There is an even more interesting rumor. Frameworkthe company that has conquered us with its repairable laptops, seems to be considering the idea of ​​creating its own printer (modular and repairable? We expect that!).

This is how at least a recent message indicates in X in which they commented on how “one of you must have sabotaged the office printer and has forced us to manufacture one. It is not possible that HP is selling printers that broken.”

There are no more details, but the fact that a company like Framework has made those comments makes us think that effectively a modular and repairable printer is possible. In fact, if there is a company that can make that “printer Tesla” with which to turn the market around that is precisely Framework.

That modularity and repaability would make something unthinkable possible in current printers. We could dream of a printer to which to replace the print head, the rollers or even the logical plate. That would eliminate (or mitigate) programmed obsolescence and that usual practice of “throwing the old woman to buy the new one” when a lower piece.

If so, Nash’s balance would break and HP and the rest of the manufacturers would probably have to modify their current strategy. The incentive to deviate from status quo It would appear for the first time in decades in this segment.

We would probably see discredit campaigns from that Open Source printer, but perhaps those manufacturers would have to change their model by even creating their own modular, reparable and “open ink” printers, although probably with limitations to maintain some type of control over the supply chain and the user experience.

Now It only remains to wait. With a little luck, Nash’s balance will have to adapt to a new player and a new reality.

Image | Imagine Entertainment

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