If you are looking for printers where you can get ink at cost in exchange for paying a bit more up front, that's available now: https://epson.com/ecotank-super-tank-printers
Kodak also did this ~10 years ago [1] but I cannot figure out if they still use this business model.
What I always hope for, and never expect, is people competing and using engineering quality as a competitive discriminator. I want the ink jet printer that German engineers designed to show they could do a better job than the Swiss engineers. The one that prints repeatably color and registration accurate prints as the building it is in burns down around it. I had a Mannesmann-Tally printer that I swear would stop bullets while it continued to chug away on your printouts. I remember those days fondly :-).
I'll settle for paying a 50% gross margin on a printer that is supported by all my systems, doesn't use a proprietary paper, ink, or other part that insures I can continue to use and service it for 10 years.
The fact that such a product doesn't exist tells me that either there aren't enough consumers like you out there to make a market at an acceptable price, or that consumers like you are willing to defect and buy a cheaper product, if it's cheaper by a large enough margin.
Again, not doubting your desires, but the market is giving you its answer to your offer ...
I have always hoped that we might some day get a market maker for quality, imagine something like EBay but instead of matching up yard sale customers with swap meet vendors you matched up customers with the means and willingness to both recognize and pay for quality. Still waiting on that :-)
We might want quality and be willing to pay for it, but still buy the cheap junk because we can't reliably identify quality in the marketplace. Paying more for a product could get more quality, but it might just be paying more.
It's a variation of the cherries and lemons in the used-car market.