Kodak is to blame for that. Printers used to be expensive and ink cheap but then Kodak flipped the business model and made a ton of sales. Other printer companies were losing out, so they followed. I guess also blame falls on the consumers of that time for choosing that model as well
Kodak began another strategy shift after Antonio M. Pérez became CEO in 2005.
Pérez invested heavily in digital technologies and new services that capitalized on its technology innovation to boost profit margins.[114] He also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build up a high-margin printer ink business to replace falling film sales, a move which was widely criticized due to the amount of competition present in the printer market, which would make expansion difficult.[128]Kodak’s ink strategy rejected the razor and blades business model used by dominant market leaderHewlett-Packardby selling expensive printers with cheaper ink cartridges.[129] In 2011, these new lines of inkjet printers were said to be on verge of turning a profit, although some analysts were skeptical as printouts had been replaced gradually by electronic copies on computers, tablets, and smartphones.[129] Inkjet printers continued to be viewed as one of the company’s anchors after it entered bankruptcy proceedings.
Kodak is to blame for that. Printers used to be expensive and ink cheap but then Kodak flipped the business model and made a ton of sales. Other printer companies were losing out, so they followed. I guess also blame falls on the consumers of that time for choosing that model as well
Looking into the history of Kodak is crazy. They used a 13 month calendar and secretly kept a nuclear reactor in the basement for years.
People forget that Kodak was a chemical company, not just photography.
Funny, I had a Kodak printer for years since they had the cheapest ink by a large margin. HP was always the most expensive.
What year did that flip?
Started building their desktop inkjet printer business in 2005 & introduced in early 2007
NBC article from February 2007
From the Kodak Wikipedia