So why is HP surprised?
You want people to use your product - then make it accessible and painless so to do; learn from the gasoline industry: high costs mean fewer visits to the pumps. What do these firms expect? Perhaps it´s the banking industry mindset all over again, the fantasy of the ever-full wallet.
Rob C
Not sure I'd quite agree. Companies like HP, Epson & Canon have tens of millions of dollars sunk into the development of photographic inkjet printers. They've provided us with an entirely new artistic tool with huge advantages over the chemical darkroom, and I'd never go back. But they have to recoup that investment somehow; inks are the cash cow that permits them to develop the next generation of even better printers.
Certainly the consumer-grade printers swilling ink from those little cartridges like a drunken sailor are economically painful if you do any significant volume of printing. That part of the printer business is very obviously going to evaporate over time, as the masses spend more time e-mailing jpegs and less printing paper cards with every passing month.
Wide-format printers are a different story. Ink costs are almost reasonable per page or per square meter, and a 72 dpi jpeg is no substitute for a beautiful 18x24" print.
None of these companies are in the business just to make us happy. They have to earn enough in the process to convince managers and investors to keep pursuing better printing technology.