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How is selling printers rent seeking?


Xerox derives much of its income from contracts rather than selling printers directly. They rent you the printer and charge you per page printed.

Source: worked tech support for better part of the 2000's and had to get Xerox printers on our networks often. Spent a lot of time updating settings when the contracts renewed and new printers were leased.


That sounds like something their customers want, whether you think they should or not.


That's essentially what I found in my time working with them. This was public sector so the idea of budgeting the hardware cost as a lease and paying per print really appealed to the administration.


Possibly exploiting patents.Though Xerox lost out on much of that to IIRC Toshiba.




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