The fundamental problem with home inkjet printing is that people just don't print that much.
The average home user probably wants to print a set of 10 holiday pictures once a year. This means that every time they want to print those ink cartridges will be dried out and have clogged print heads - so they have to buy an expensive set of new cartridges to replace their barely-used ones.
It is why laser printing is so often suggested for home users: you can let a printer rot for several years and still reliably print a couple of dozen pages when you finally need it again. The downside is that they do a rather poor job at printing photos so now there are even fewer reasons to use it, and you only need it once every couple of years to print out a contract to sign or something.
I've personally given up on owning printers. They don't make the rock-solid HP / Brother workhorses anymore, and I can't be bothered to deal with all the proprietary "smart" crap they are pushing these days. If I want something printed, I'll just go to the local library.
I'd agree the average person who wants some photo prints is better off just sending the job out to Wal-Mart, some pharmacy, shutterfly or one of many competitors.
When I got a 'free' inkjet printer I realized I couldn't just make 10 anime prints and come back six monhths later and make 10 more so I committed to print something every day which I did for maybe 2.5 years and it turned out to be quite an adventure. To feed that machine I got serious about taking photographs, when that sucked up all my time I fell out of the printing habit!
The average home user probably wants to print a set of 10 holiday pictures once a year. This means that every time they want to print those ink cartridges will be dried out and have clogged print heads - so they have to buy an expensive set of new cartridges to replace their barely-used ones.
It is why laser printing is so often suggested for home users: you can let a printer rot for several years and still reliably print a couple of dozen pages when you finally need it again. The downside is that they do a rather poor job at printing photos so now there are even fewer reasons to use it, and you only need it once every couple of years to print out a contract to sign or something.
I've personally given up on owning printers. They don't make the rock-solid HP / Brother workhorses anymore, and I can't be bothered to deal with all the proprietary "smart" crap they are pushing these days. If I want something printed, I'll just go to the local library.