@ghetocowboy, you make some good points. Decent compatible can be gotten for the canon printers I use for about 3$ ea, and refill ink is about 1$ (including empty carts in the long run). I first got serious about home printing when I was more hevilly into photography (rank amature home stuff). If you print much in the way of photos, you know that it drinks ink so fast, the diffrence between 1$ and 3$ for a cart matters a lot. For the average home user (probably most here), compatibles are plenty cheap and easier to use. Abacus are very good carts for both canons and epsons and a set of 6 is only about 16$ plus shipping (for the epson 300 if you use the private back door site). shipping is resonable, here is the backdoor site.
https://private.abacus24-7.com/shoppingcart.aspx
its not any big secret and doesn’t require any special passwords or anything. I’m just guessing that it is for informed people (not casual web surfers genericlly looking for ink), or maybe it is for good customers, the linked got leeked all over the web, they don’t care, buisness is buisness and sales are sales.
Even though I am not really into photography anymore (no time with a new baby), its nice when family visits (cause of the new baby), to be able to print off a few hundred 4x6 pics of the baby, high quality pics (often beter than the local crap photo labs like walmart or the drug stores do), and the cost is negligable. For me, a heavy seroious printer user, it matters, but for the average person here, it doesn’t (just make sure you get good compatibles as it does matter).
@budzos, last I knew, officially, staples only takes ink carts that have the printhead in the cartrige etc. They specifically say they do not take individual ink cartriges like canons and many epsons use. Still, even though that is policy (last I knew), many stores will take any ink cartriged. I suspect part of it is that the average low pay staples cashier doesent know the diffrence. The average overworked, underpaid staples lower manager has beter things to do than give a shit (unless you piss them off), and franklly, higher managers probably are tired of arguing with customers over policy all the time (they have beter things to do than quibble over a couple of dollars several times a day). Staples recently changed thier policy on how the coupons can be used (which would have put an end to buying media with a price match and the coupon), but franklly, most stores dont follow the rules at all, so its worth a try.