both hp and epson offset the expendable costs on those.

even if you avoid the fixed box trap, you cannot avoid the "replace printer head nozzle" trap that the driver will use to lock you out of your printer in a year or so.

I have printed over 5000 pages with mine, the head is fine (head test printout looks good), I don't know what you're referring to?

To me it rather looks like consumers have been so thoroughly conditioned to distrust printers that they aren't even capable of trusting the good ones anymore maybe - and thus unfortunately keep buying the garbage ones, thinking it doesn't make a difference.

I.e. whenever one of the actual solutions is discussed there's this gossip of "nah, they're also ripping you off" - but I have the thing right behind my desk and it works just fine.

Inkjet as a technology doesn’t stand up well to intermittent use due to ink drying out. I think a lot of consumers buy a printer and use it rarely (idle for weeks at a time). In my experience using an inkjet this way leads to dry ink clogging the head. People don’t easily forget technology letting them down when they needed it.

Does this still happen with current printers or is it one of those ancient memes about printers which don't disappear?

When I turn the Epson one off, it audibly parks the head. I would suppose it is parked onto a gasket which would prevent it from drying out.

Personally, I don't buy laser printers because I cannot imagine that toner dust isn't unhealthy, and I would be scared of it leaking into the air I breathe.

Feel free to prove me wrong with studies, I would appreciate being less scared about it for my next printer in case the Epson does die some day.

I expect it doesn’t matter if you only print occasionally, but toner exposure from operating printers seems to be a significant health risk: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29233006/

It very well could be a problem that has been solved. I have never owned an inkjet personally because of how much trouble my dad had with them when I was a child. I have owned the same laser printer (an HP i found at a second hand computer shop) for the last ten years, and it has basically just worked. I’m just nearing the end of the first tonor cartridge i bought for it, I print relatively rarely, but so far it has just worked every time.

Ecotank ink is water-based and more dilute than the normal stuff, apparently to reduce the liklihood of clogging. It needs a cleaning cycle every few months - that's it.

I've had an Ecotank (ET4500) for at least 5 years and 17,000 pages. The printer head nozzle is fine.

I wish they didn't use glass, I imagine people will be rinsing them in the sink to recycle them

?

>Make sure to get one which has a user-replaceable "maintenance box", the cheaper ones have a fixed one

That seems really sneaky. Making a sponge replaceable isn't hard or expensive.

I would guess the reason the cheaper ones don't have it is that making it removable implies making it accessible from the outside which implies adding a pump and hoses to pump the ink into it:

The slot for the box at my printer is at the back of it, not at the ink head, so the ink can only get there by pumping it.

(Not defending Epson's design choices here, just trying to explain them.)