And they can continue to do it, even revoking their own print cartridges if they want to. "Oh, that's 2020 ink, it won't print in 2021."
It'd be way too easy to claim that the ink is past it's best-by date, and that they want you to have a trouble free experience with their ink, so they are disabling that bad expired ink.
Plus, since it's a consumable, it's much harder to return a defective ink cartridge once the packaging has been opened.