doesn't help that printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids in the world and the whole business model of printer companies is based on selling overpriced ink, so much so that they sell printers at a loss and then try to block out third party cartridges
You don't get the same quantity of ink in the cartridges.
When I used to sell computer equipment, I knew the numbers and while I don't know them specifically now, I can assure you the multi billion dollar companies didn't start putting more ink in the cartridges that come with their printers. They are starter cartridges and print only a portion of the pages replacement cartridges will print. In my day, the cartridges that came with Epson, canon, Lexmark, and HP (the brands we sold) typically had 20-30% of the capacity. Once in awhile Epson would sell a printer with full cartridges as a promo.
I mean, you've already made a bad choice going with an inkjet. Buying more ink is a bad decision. So is buying a new printer but you might get better features
And if anything you're part of a nice metric that shows buying replacement ink isn't happening
it started with low on cyan, so I did what it asked for and replaced the whole ink set, but then found out that the previous ink has dried on the ink tuner since I haven't used the printer for ~6 months and didn't feel like spending any more money on this shit.
So I got my myself a laser brother printer and it's been kicking for over 6 years now
I have a Pixma mx922 and it just works for what I need. I recently replaced all the inks and they all looked empty and the printer said I had plenty left in everything but cyan. It's dumb enough it'll run out of ink if you let it. I love it.