Printer Ink

I was in Wal-Mart today. Joyce was shopping and I was in electronics browsing. I remembered I was getting low on printer ink for my Lexmark 2500 printer/scanner. I bought it years ago for just $35 on sale. I looked for the dual ink package, one black and one color. I found it and I was astounded to see that it was $49 for just the ink. I looked at the other new printer/scanners on display and it was the same thing. The printers come with ink initially and they are around $60, but replacement cartridges also cost around $60. Now I ask you, how can this be? A person can buy a new printer with cartridges for the price of a set of replacements. Isn’t there something wrong with this?