Digital BW, The Print

Epson will blindly do everything and anything within law and "reason" to
protect its cash cow, ink sales. In the early 1980s, when Canon color copies
first gained popularity, I was an executive at Polaroid. This was the
beginning of the handwriting on the wall. It didn't take any genius to see
that emerging technologies were good enough to eat into instant film sales
in a big way and there was only more to come. So what did Polaroid's most
senior management do? They put on the blinders and absolutely refused to see
the impact new technology would have. It was simply too threatening to the
"cash generating machines" that the film coating lines were. In this case,
it's called denial. This is true. I was there. (I left in 1987.)

Epson's cash generating machine is ink and it's VERY profitable, so
profitable, in fact, that it lets them mass produce a lot of hardware at a
loss. In their case it's not denial but rather defensive behavior, like an
elephant protecting its young. This is a very powerful force and the
stakeholders get used to the cash flow. It's addicting and you have to keep
feeding the beast.

I'm not suggesting that we give up. To the contrary. We should also try
anything and everything within law and reason to prevail. However, Epson
could lose every member of this list and their support and advocacy and it
wouldn't even be be a mosquito bite, let alone a bee sting. Public
awareness, on the other hand, particularly of the environmental issues, can
have some impact and it can be generated through "guerilla" means that don't
have to be expensive. What is the ratio of plastic to ink in consumer Epson
carts? Is this environmentally sound? The plastic in a milk bottle is
relatively innocuous in comparison; 64 ounces of milk to a couple of ounces
of plastic, but this plastic is still a cause for environmental concern. The
ratio of ink to plastic is orders of magnitude worse in ink carts, not to
mention the toxicity or lack thereof of the ink itself. Get enough people
aware of the issues and you can have some leverage. Writing to Bush about
legislation that might negatively affect big business, however, is like
asking the Pope to endorse birth control. "It ain't gonna happen."

Rick