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I'm disappointed there's no legislation yet that bans these practices wholesale (vendor lock-in, wasteful and overpriced ink cartridges, etc). There's a range of consumer products with scummy practices like this, like razors, printers, vapes/e-cigarrettes, etc. They generate huge amounts of e-waste.

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I'm not sure how legislating the razor and blade business model would help with the bit about e-waste. The basic idea is simply that the product is sold at a loss but the consumables (ink, blades, vape cartridges) are sold with high markup. My gut reaction is that making the consumables cheaper would increase the waste because people would be buying more of those consumables.

How does this not fall under anti-competitive practices?

There's a big difference between "this vaguely might be construed as deterring competition" and "illegal according to anti-competition law". Razor blades, the namesake of "razor and blade business model" has existed for decades without successful legal challenge, for instance.

Actually blades cost pennies and there is no vendor lock in. I assume they are talking about some sort of cartridge head razor.

It probably could? I was just talking about the waste aspect.

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