The "boomer mom-level consumer" will pay more than $500 over year in replacing dried out ink cartridges and possibly printers (broken due to ink dry-out). And they're better off with a black&white laser printer, with the occasional color job done in a print shop.
Exactly, I (but not a boomer mom level consumer) bought a HP Black & White Laser on sale from Walmart with Toner for 1000 pages, all for $49. Whenever that toner finishes (I bought about in 2019), new toner is again $49. Way cheaper.
Any occasional color print goes to walmart or cvs or staples (exactly 2 times I have done that since I bought this printer).
Yes, but replacement toner is a full toner, I think 4k pages (or more). New printer comes with 1k pages toner only, and new printer price was black friday sale price, usually its $89.
> The thing about laser is it's not a great answer for your typical boomer mom-level consumer.
I'm not sure how someone's age matters, but the elderly appreciate "it just works" peripherals just as much as you little whipper-snappers. One of the best things we did for my mom-in-law was replace her ink-jet printer with a laser printer. B&W MFCs start around $200.
I think the age thing is about habits. A lot of older people grew up preferring reading stuff on paper to reading it on some flickering CRT display, and that habit is still with some of them. Younger people never got into the habit of printing anything.
Flickering CRTs were a bad habit. But needn't be so. They were just cheap, or bad quality, or powered by a bad graphics card, wrong setup. One could always use good ones instead.
