I got hit by this a few years back, bought a printer, and had to spend the next hour wandering around the city trying to find someone that could sell me the right type of USB cable as the shop that had the printer (OfficeMax IIRC) didn't sell them.
From memory I gave up as the only place that had them was DSE who wanted about $20 for a cable for a $90 printer and managed to find one in the depths of a cupboard somewhere.
tardtasticx: That is extremely annoying. I did manage to find a cable in the end at home though. Surely if they're leaving the cable out to save a few cents on each printer, couldn't they add $1 to the price to make it $60 not $59? Then they're making quite a large sum of money extra, while still including that USB cable and next to no one will notice that tiny increase in price.
Problem is all the printer manufacturers were (are) dropping their pants on printer prices, so to remain competitive the manufacturer of your printer have done the same and, like others, dropped the usb cable to save some of that money.
After getting caught out a couple times at work many years ago, I always now check what the contents of the box is - and not just for printers, for everything. That way there is usually no surprises. Buyer beware.
They do that though, as they then make their money back on the ink. It can be cheaper to buy a printer with ink, than it is to just buy the ink itself. I would prefer the printers to be more expensive, and the ink to be a lot cheaper. But many people don't buy stuff that way. They don't want to pay a high upfront cost, so essentially you are paying off the printer when you buy the ink. It is a bit stupid and wasteful, but I guess it means you don't have to worry too much if the printer dies, you just replace it.
tardtasticx: That is extremely annoying. I did manage to find a cable in the end at home though. Surely if they're leaving the cable out to save a few cents on each printer, couldn't they add $1 to the price to make it $60 not $59? Then they're making quite a large sum of money extra, while still including that USB cable and next to no one will notice that tiny increase in price.
Problem is all the printer manufacturers were (are) dropping their pants on printer prices, so to remain competitive the manufacturer of your printer have done the same and, like others, dropped the usb cable to save some of that money.
After getting caught out a couple times at work many years ago, I always now check what the contents of the box is - and not just for printers, for everything. That way there is usually no surprises. Buyer beware.
They do that though, as they then make their money back on the ink. It can be cheaper to buy a printer with ink, than it is to just buy the ink itself. I would prefer the printers to be more expensive, and the ink to be a lot cheaper. But many people don't buy stuff that way. They don't want to pay a high upfront cost, so essentially you are paying off the printer when you buy the ink. It is a bit stupid and wasteful, but I guess it means you don't have to worry too much if the printer dies, you just replace it.
Then you get companies like HP who supplied the printers with "sample" ink cartridges which had a fairly small amount of ink in them, forcing people to buy new full cartridges quite quickly. Thankfully that practice was curtailed fairly quickly.
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