TBH this… Not one of these consumer printer businesses is going to survive commoditization of their now-primary source of consumer revenue - ink (the printer is just a loss-leading on-ramp to that business). These suicide-pills are the last gasps of a dying business model. Businesses don’t tolerate such shenanigans, but you and I will pay the price for doing so.

People have been buying 3rd party toner and ink for printers, for 30+ years.

And before that, 3rd party ink and ribbons, for dot matrix printers.

I agree that the consumer print business has gone down a strange path, bit this sort stuff has been going on forever.

EG, printers purposefully wasting ink, I recall 20+ years ago.