The wild part is that this isn’t really a pricing mistake, it’s the business model. That $65 Canon isn’t “a printer”, it’s a subsidized acquisition channel for a customer who will buy OEM ink at a huge margin or sign up for some kind of recurring refill program later. Accounting is fine eating some or all of the printer cost if the average buyer turns into years of cartridge revenue.

If you buy a new printer every time you run low on ink, you’re basically arbitraging that CAC line item. On paper it can be a “life hack” as long as only a few people do it and you ignore the e-waste and friction. If it ever became common, the easy knobs for the manufacturer are obvious: even smaller starter carts, more lock-in, more activation hoops, and less of the subsidy that makes this trick work in the first place.