Has the world changed though? I'm pretty sure all the other consumer printer companies still run off this model. If HP was to break ranks and start charging (effectively) a premium for their printers by selling them for a profit, would consumers actually buy them over the cheaper alternatives that are still subsidized by ink sales? The state of the ad-subsidized LCD TV market suggests that customers either don't know or don't care about what they're trading for lower prices - so I suspect that selling printers at a profit would be a net loss of revenue for HP.