I have noticed more in the last few years that computer vendors are starting to be price conscious. Printers are becoming more common that have reasonable ink replacements, and at more average consumer prices. Five years ago when you bought some cheap computer hardware you tended to have a bad experience. However many customers have bought cheap hardware the last few years and mostly had a good experience. Some unreliable companies still seem to make junk however.

I wonder if this is because of the recession or just the lowering in general of technology goods? I suspect that the biggest driver is people having bad experiences with junk manufactures and avoiding them. As US citizens we had to do that to US car companies to get them to improve the quality of their offerings. It is surprising isn’t it that as much as  companies say quality is job 1, it’s really just a mathematical equation about how much profit can be extracted from meeting expectations.

So perhaps the expectation now of customers is cost-effective and not features or style like it once was. What do you think?