We’ve got some super Samsung technology in our house. A couple of TV screens, yes I confess to having a TV on the wall in the kitchen, my wife’s got a Samsung tablet and most recently I bought an excellent Samsung 4-colour laser printer.
It’s the last one which is giving me a bit of a problem. It’s got four colour cartridges. The perfectly rational argument is that you don’t need to change a full 4-colour cartridge when only one of those colours is spent. That’s fine until I find that the price for one single colour cartridge is £50 or so. That seems a bit steep.
But that’s not my problem. That’s commerce and Samsung’s smart ‘lock in the customer and then earn as much money from him/her for ever thereafter’. As soon as I can find a pirate cartridge in which I might have some confidence I’m off.
My problem is recycling. For a start it’s not just the cartridge to be recycled it’s also a rather large box, designed I’m sure to support the high price, and the protective airbag inside. That’s a lot more load on the environment than something much simpler. Then instead of having a label and simply being able to put the box in the mail or drop it off at a participating retailer I’m directed towards www.samsung.com/printer/recycle.
When you get to the web-site you select your country (fair enough different countries might have different systems) then you get a page of very small font talking about Samsung’s STAR program. But to go further you have to be registered. That means giving Samsung lots of your personal info so that they can presumably continue marketing to you.
I don’t like this and find it cynical. I don’t like Samsung saying that it will be responsible in its actions but that I have to give them my information first. I perfectly respect its right to continue to promote to me, in fact I’d like it to do so because it has good products, but I don’t respect the way it’s trying to link its own good behaviour with getting my contact information. It should be above that.
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