Q:
A: This is not strictly speaking correct. Only a few low end printers cost less than the summ of ALL their cartridges. Regardless, each Inkjet technology is proprietary, i.e., most vendors have to re-invent the wheel or buy someone else's technology under license. This is costly. Most of the technology resides in the cartridge print head, which means that every time you purchase a new cartridge you get a new printer. There are notable exceptions to this. If your cartridge is a simple tank, the quality of the print will degrade with time. Prices of cartridges have reduced drastically over the past years and it would be surprising if by shopping around you could not get some really cheap original cartridges.