Sounds like something that would be pretty trivial to solve by a ever so slight application of advance planning?

Like the advanced planning of buying your own printer so you don’t have to drive 20 minutes into town to print?

American society in a nutshell. Need to drive 20 min to reach civilization so instead you end up buying inkjet printers that are likely end up in the trash every year due to their low quality production and because the corporation is scamming you with overpriced cartridges.

Yup. Socio-economic and geographic forces are powerful, and there is a reason why many things are different in the US from denser locales with historically stable and established urban centers like Europe or Asia.

Give us another couple thousand years or so.

Did you miss the part about kids?

Have two of them, youngest under 3, and a full time single parent. If you don’t plan ahead and direct them usefully, they’ll roll you hard (not out of malice, but because they’re kids) and everyone has a much tougher time.

My middle schooler often doesn't have more than a couple days between when he has everything necessary to complete an assignment, and when it is due. He has other workload, too, so there's no guarantee he's working on it that night. Getting to the one drugstore with a remaining photocenter near me in the evening is a pain. Even with notice, it's a pain.

People have legitimate reasons to want their own high quality color printers, even if that is its own pain, too.

Also true of black and white printing, but of course the whole point is that people like the convenience of being able to do their printing at home.

Sounds like condescension from someone who doesn't have kids.

Kid can deal with regular paper

Wow, I just use regular paper for school projects lol.

I think the disconnect here may be that most people rarely print glossy, so stopping by a store isn't a big deal for the vast majority.

If you're really printing glossy on short order demand then of course owning the machine might make sense.