Also, the technology is pretty hairy, lots of patents (enforceable ones, too), and a very demanding customer base.
I used to work for a company that made a very nice, but expensive, dye-sub printer.
They decided not to continue the line, which disappointed a lot of folks, as the printers actually had some of the best tech, in them, but it wasn't worth it.
They are, and in this age of paperless everything, less and less useful to the average consumer. Anyone who still does a lot of printing is going to go with something that can better handle the volume, like a laser printer.
Oh well, the margin for the printers is mostly negative. For consumables, the margin is actually super high. But you simply cannot get into the market without a popular printer, isn't it?
In consumables, they are competing with third-party ink/toner - which is pretty much the reason for most of their nasty behavior. Still, it's their choice to sell hard to replicate printers at cost, and recoup losses on selling much easier to replicate ink/toner. They could do it the other way, but they don't, and I'm not clear exactly why.
At this point, I suspect there may be a rule in economics that says roughly: it's better if your customers have to spend less money with you, but more often, than more money but less frequently. I.e. it's better to have them spend $1 every month with you than $12 every year. And I feel it could hold even if you correct for time value of money - it seems the businesses see some value in the frequency of repeat interactions with a customer itself.
