After getting fed up with the cost of razor cartridges I went and got a double edged razor holder and 100 Derby safety razors, and never looked back.
This seems to be one of those curious cases where (at least in Europe and North America!) almost everyone either owns an electric shaver or buys expensive multi-blade cartridges, and has done so for decades. But over time the value added by those cartridges — safety from children's fingers? Certainly not a closer shave — was nullified and actually made negative by their cost. Meanwhile I shave for €5 a year with safety razors.
Is the marketing of cartridges such a strong agent here that the seemingly superior solution is largely ignored? Or am I not seeing the appeal of a Gillette nine-blade turbo-smooth aloë-vera-coated hyper-cartridge?
I sometimes wonder if this phenomenon is limited to the West, and that the rest of the world happily shaves with cheap safety blades or straight edge razors.