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Hypothesis: The average printer buyer is not reading eff.org or having conversations with friends about friends' printer experiences. They go to a store and buy what the salesperson recommends. After purchase, they think of the restrictions as an annoyance, not a freedom issue to talk with their friends about.

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Also, from HPs perspective, people buy a printer, use it, but then they use up the initial ink, and buy cheap knock-off ink. It's not as good, it gets clogged in the heads, or people don't want to waste ink running the cleaning, etc, so then people hate on the printer and HP.

Instant ink charges you by page, so you can run cleaning cycles as much as you want, do everything you need to do that maintains a good experience, and people just pay for what they actually use in output. I see the appeal.

As someone who just had his 4th, fancy HP inkjet printer kick the bucket, vowed to never spend another dime with HP, and brought a Brother laser jet, I think at least part of the problem is: what's the alternative? Kodak promised a printer that was going to solve the ink price problem, but that never materialized. One would think there was a golden opportunity to disrupt this ridiculous market, but color ink is apparently the most expensive resource on planet earth. It hardly matters which piece of crap printer I buy. It's going to cost $100 to refill, and it will break in less than 2 years. I mean, next, someone's going to tell me there's been collusion in this market for 30 years, and I'd be all like, pfft, come on. Really?

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