[did you know?] Cost-wise, gasoline < vodka < blood < printer ink

Oh what priorities does humanity today have.

I saw this graphic on the left on MakeUseOf.com.

Of course, one driver behind this fact is demand. For example, people consume more gasoline and usually buy them in liters (L), while vodka is generally bought in milliliters (mL), 1000 mL at most, blood usually in 450 mL packs, and ink in 20 mL cartridges.



Or, look at it this way. People generally drive everyday, maybe drink once a week, and need blood maybe only twice their lives. And people print... on average maybe never? Because they usually print at the office, and the companies anyway usually have the $$$ for it?

Of course, one reason why printer ink is more expensive than blood is because you didn't pay for the printer in the first place!

But seriously, it's usually just under 20 mL per black ink cartridge plus you're usually paying for the plastic, too, and that can print up to 5000 pages. For most people at home, one ink cartridge might last a year, considering also that some of the ink is not actually used at all because of ink dry out. For most businesses today, printing is very important to their survival and so maybe that's really the market for printer ink.

But then, technically shouldn't ink still be cheaper than blood? Why can a commodity be more expensive than something that is essential to human life?

The one other thing is that the printer ink industry is an oligopoly. The ink refill industry tried to make it a competition, but the printer manufacturers took to court, and having more $$$, won. Unfortunately, the ink refill industry is not at all exactly on our sides as well, because they have their own interests not exactly along the same line as consumers', but you know, when you need to print, it's better to choose the lesser of two evils.

But as you know, the best thing to do is, particularly when we have a choice, don't print at all. Save the trees. And support businesses that likewise try to save the trees.

UPDATE: As per my friend RB's, ink cartridges might have 20 mL, not 200 mL, ink in them, so I changed the numbers here, but anyway it still doesn't change the overall picture.