My HP All-In-One printer started chewing up paper today. Can't work out why. So I wheeled out my old, 2001 era HP Deskjet 990 and toddled off to PC world to buy some ink.

Two carts for the 990 cost £62. On the aisle next to me, they were selling new HP Photosmart inkjet printers for £50, including obviously a set of ink cartridges in the box.

Manufacturers probably defend the gouging on the ink cartridges by arguing the printers are in effect subsidised and you make up the pay-as-you-go balance through usage.

I concluded that printers are going to become extinct, a important but transitory peripheral that has more in common with bicycle training wheels than the future of technology. We needed them to hold our hands as we moved from one world to the next, but now we're here; sayonara printers.