Here’s a quote from Clark on printers from an older podcast but still relevant (and supports OP’s post): “You gotta give Hewlett Packard credit for understanding consumer behavior, because people will go into Office Depot/Office Max, Staples, Best Buy, or Sam’s or Costco or BJ’s Wholesale and look at the printers, and they go down the line and they look for the one with the cheapest price, Hewlett Packard, they put it in their cart, they buy it, and don’t realize that one ink cartridge costs twice what the printer costs to buy! That’s their business model. Well, Consumer Reports has just updated what are the best deals on printers in the country for overall use. And Hewlett Packard which is completely dominant in the printer industry, only one of their printers even made the list… their best home printer for the long run, the Epson EcoTank ET-2800… This one is about $199, and why would you pay $200 for a color printer when you could go buy the HP or something like that for $79? The reason you do that is if you’re doing decent volume over the years, low to moderate volume, the ink is basically free. They did a completely different thing, they said, we’re going to sell you a printer we can make a profit on, and here’s the ink. And so I’ve never had to buy ink for either of (our printers).”