why does it have to be a baseline? how about "send a more ink when the current one is low". like amazon's feature to automatically reorder certain items when they run low. you can then specify that each order should be 1, 5, 10 or however many cartridges you need, and if you pick 10, but are not a heavy user then it simply takes longer until you need another delivery.

> why does it have to be a baseline? how about "send a more ink when the current one is low".

Because that is how much a single, high capacity ink cartridge costs on average. Can't be lower that the price of the cartridge, if you're buying whole cartridges. Also, will probably be more than this, because you might need several cartridges for more volume, or several types of color cartridges.

if that's the price of a cartridge, and i need that much ink in a month, then sure. but if i don't use up a whole cartridge in a month, or even if i use it up faster, then there should be an option to get the next one only when the current one is empty. why should committing to a fixed amount be the only option?

charging by pages printed is just creative accounting and unfair to those that print lots of pages with little ink, while giving an advantage to those who use lots of ink per page. what's more, that's information i don't even want the printer company to get.

there is only one benefit to charging per page: print shops, because they charge per page too, so the cost and profit margin per page will remain the same regardless of how much ink they need.