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Maybe this reflects more on the people you know, and they can afford to worry about operating costs? Most of my community is college students, and I don't know anyone who owns a laser printer. I simply don't own a printer at all and only print at the office, because the printers I can afford suck that much to own. I suspect you'd see similar problems among most of the target market for inkjets - we can't afford to have nice things.

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I mean, most of the people I know don't bother to own any kind of printer. What I'm saying is, except for a very few who, like me, optimize for maximum photo print quality and are willing and able to pay extra for it, those few I know who do bother to own printers have lasers, because they're no more expensive to buy these days, and a whole lot cheaper to feed.

I've never been a college student, but I've been plenty broke a few different times in my life. If anything, the relevance of being flush would seem to be in not having to worry about operating costs. I sure as hell would never have considered buying a photo printer that eats three bucks in ink per print, and God knows how much in cleaning cycles, if I wasn't lucky enough to be flush these days. Sure, I got it cheap with a rebate, but so what? It's the running costs that kill you, if anything does.

I just bought a used laser printer for 40 Euro when i was a student. Many years later I bought a new toner for 20-30 Euro. The printer is one of the best investments I ever made. It rarely gives me any trouble and when I need to print something it just works, even when I haven't used it in months.

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