Inkjet cartridge shopping rage: why not just buy a new printer?

I've just been shopping for new inkjet cartridges for my colour printer, so am naturally in a rage and need to vent.

There is nothing new about ink being more expensive than French champagne (at least in the retail market), and the cartridges on display at Dick Smith didn't disappoint (and not to pick on Dick's; it's the same story, give or take a couple of dollars, at Warehouse Stationery or JB or other chains):

Click to zoom.

With everything running low, I had to buy six, at $29 a pop.

Painful, but nothing new.

Ink has been expensive since the dawn of the inkjet.

The logic has always been that printer makers take a razers-and-blades approach, and that printers would cost a lot more up-front if they couldn't make up their money on ink (and paper).

But now that argument has fallen apart, because entry-level inkjet printers have become ultracheap. 

Walk into any store and you'll see multi-function models under $100. At Dick's today there was even an Epson for $74.50:

Click to zoom.

I paid around $220 for my printer (for wi-fi and what I hope is better quality), but the truth is all sub-$149 multifunction printers are pretty good these days, especially if you're not too fussed about speed or paper capacity.

So the question becomes: why buy new ink cartridges? [UPDATE: See the reader comments below about "starter cartridges" with stingy amounts of ink.]

Why not just throw your old printer out on the kerb, and buy a new one?

I've already done that once - prompted also by the fact my printer had a fault, and it was unlikely the cost of repair, with labour, would be less than the cost of a new one.

But it seems ridiculous. One reader told me his father now had a collection of old inkjets "in double digits."

At the very least, the superlow price of new inkjets makes you less fearful of buying from an unknown budget source of cartridges online, buy a third-party cartridge, or saving tons by getting old cartridges refilled. Refills or kock-offs can invalidate a warranty. But with a new printer so cheap, who cares?

Something's messed up here.

A couple of readers have asked why I don't use a kiosk at the mall, or an online service like Frogprints - and I have so say those are increasingly attractive options. But I do like the immediacy and control of having my own printer.

My next instinct is to think about a colour laser printer. 

The popular wisdom is that while lasers cost three or four times more up-front, you win in the long by dint of lower running cost.

But a recent PC World test found - among home and small business models, at least - that there's no advantage on cost-per-page for colour prints.

Consumer.org.nz has a (subscriber-on) printer running cost calculator which lets you pit various models of inkjet against a laser. Running a couple of models I found, again, that inkjet wins.

So the solution, I guess, is just to print a lot less stuff in colour. 

Hmn.

No fun.