I think that the thing that makes this problem practically unsolvable by market is that consumers most informed about deficiencies of the product are a the leas

I think that the thing that makes this problem practically unsolvable by market is that consumers most informed about deficiencies of the product are a the least affected by them. Specifically people with knowledge about tricks of printer manufacturers are likely to know how to hack DRM on cartridges and ever how to install continuous ink systems, and so are not interested in buying more expensive printers without trickery. Another example of the same problem probably more familiar to HN audience (we have more network hackers here than printer hackers) is routers and other internet of shit: standard firmware tends to be very insecure because people who understand how bad it is tend to ignore the security of firmware in their buying decisions as they just want a hardware compatible with software they will install themself. As there is a term "lemon market" for information asymmetry between buyers and sellers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons ) I think we need to choose some other fruit as a term for that kind of information asymmetry between buyers that I am talking about.