Authenticating cartridges is so 2008
Leasing ink on a per page basis is in now: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/cv/instantink
Leasing ink on a per page basis is in now: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/cv/instantink
It’s amazing libraries have managed to stay true to their goal and not charge membership fees. Should authors be getting residuals on every read of their book in the same way every Netflix play of a movie pays an actor???
TBH, I'd see that.
The residuals for whatever service will stream it are going through the roof. Funded. Get ready for swedish marooned family part 2!!!!
Those liquid cartridges are always drying up essentially causing you to throw away money you spent. For this type of cartridge getting the cartridge replaced frequently puts the burden on them and saves you money if you don't print much.
For toner it makes more sense to just buy the cartridge and hold on to it.
Even within different lines from the same manufacturers I remember that varied because of the design of the cartridge.
And similarly commercial printers would be more aggressive about automatically ensuring the cartridge ran every once in a while than home ones. All things they could (and probably did) tweak when moving to this model
It's fine to want something better. I, personally, gave up on inkjet printers and switched to laser a long time ago. I have only ever been an occasional printer but I always want a printer available for when I need it. I have no interest in photo printing either, so a laser is perfect for my needs. Perhaps you have different needs. I can imagine it being very frustrating if you want to print the occasional photo and are always finding the ink cartridge empty or dried up. Personally, if I wanted to occasionally print a photo I would probably get it done professionally rather than waste money on yet another inkjet printer.
There are personal printers that use "dye sublimation" cartridges. These don't dry up from what I gather and also allow amazing results at home on demand. Not as cheap as in store services but not that bad either. You are limited to one print size though which is unfortunate.
I used to work in IT at a public school district 15 years ago where they had hundreds of Epson printers with fixed printheads. This saved costs in the cartridges but the inks(which were designed to produce excellent photographic results) had some substance that caused them to clog up these very microscopic printheads essentially rendering the printheads and thus the printer destroyed. This happened a lot on printers where people would only print once in a blue moon.
Seems like you can have two options: poor quality but thin water based inks. I'd argue Laser had taken that market away from inkjet for good. The other option is hight quality photographic ink that is much thicker and gels up easier. Not to mention the printheads are more delicate due to their finer pitch.