Hasn't it been long established that printers are a loss leader? I have a HP printer that cost me peanuts and at every opportunity the printer pushes me to purchase HP printer cartridges. Yes you can game the system but most people don't understand that and it never crosses their mind because of how absurd it is.
This isn't the case for consumer printers anymore, though. Ink isn't as expensive as it once was (HP/Lexmark/Epson/Canon all have $10-15 black inkjet cartridges), and printers don't ship with so much ink that it's cheaper to buy the printer. It's the same with low-end laser printers too; a $99 Brother comes with a 600 page cartridge, where a $50 replacement prints 2600 pages.
I guess the situation is different for business-grade stuff where the toner costs $800 a pop.
