You know the razor and blades business model, where you can buy the razor very cheaply, and then you spend a lot of money over the years buying the blades.
Of course, this business model also applies to other complementary products, such as game consoles and video games, and printers and ink.
Ink as a Service
And companies can extend the business model. Rather than buying individual razor blades, video games, and ink cartridges, you can obtain the complementary products “as a Service.”
For example, HP Instant Ink:
“HP Instant Ink is the hassle-free, money-saving ink subscription service that automatically delivers ink only when you’re running low. Plans start at $1.79 a month.”
Of course that price assumes you only print 10 pages a month, but whatever.
I won’t dwell on the specifics on the plan (charging by the page rather than the ink used, reducing your privacy by letting HP and whoever else know when you print 900 pages, etc.).
Vendor benefits from as a Service
But I will note that HP instant Ink has the same vendor advantage as any other “as a Service” offering:
Increased customer lock-in.
I will speak from my own experience.
- When my company sold on-premise solutions to government agencies, they paid from their capital budget and the contract was for a fixed term. After 5 or 7 years or whatever when the contract term expired, the agency’s hardware would be antiquated and it would have to go out to bid again.
- Later, when my company sold cloud solutions, there was more budgetary flexibility. Some agencies didn’t have to use capital funds; this was a service, after all. And if the vendor was really fortunate, there was no contract term limit either, so the agency could stay with the vendor forever. Obsolescence wasn’t an issue because Amazon or Microsoft took care of that behind the scenes.
HP Instant Ink isn’t a perfect parallel, since it doesn’t include obsolete printer replacement. (But it could.) But the Ink as a Service (IaaS) offering certainly helps lock you in to HP…and to using HP ink rather than third-party ink.
And it’s yet another move from people owning things to people licensing things.
But if it provides a benefit (HP Instant Ink claims “up to” 50% cost savings), then it may be worthwhile.
(Imagen 3)
Bredemarket 