I personally do think it their actions are deliberately exploitative. I don't inherently have a problem with offering users a 'more convenient' experience for a

I personally do think it their actions are deliberately exploitative. I don't inherently have a problem with offering users a 'more convenient' experience for a higher price, but there's absolutely no reason they couldn't sell their prefilled cartridges and also offer a refillable cartridge with a reset button, which can still tell you how many washes it has left. They also could absolutely sell the detergent directly to consumers, rather than implying it's some kind of secret sauce. Ultimately, this would cost almost nothing to engineer, and you wouldn't have to change the machine at all. Their deceit is made more egregious by their supposed care for the environment.