Or is the situation that HP is trying to increase profits beyond that (and the way is to force subscriptions)?
On subscriptions, are there two angles? I'm thinking maybe (1) consumer has to get consumables from HP rather than competitors, no DRM circumvention tricks, so HP gets the revenue and fixes the price; and (2) consumer is forced to provide regularly recurring revenue, has little flexibility, and overall paying more than they would purchasing refills on-demand.