I do not know what is going on but right now. But on eBay, or Craig's List you can pick up nice, NIB, Canon Pixma photoprinters for less than the cost (even with shipping) of the cartridges that come with them (be careful some are being sold without ink and without packaging bar codes). You can pick up a multi-function Pixma for the same or $10 or so more than the cartridges.

Last week I did not bid on an auction item and it ended up going for $12 because nobody else did either! There was another photoprinter that went for $71 with 12 OEM cartridges.

This tree hugger squirms at buying an entire printer because it is cheaper than the ink but I need a second photo type printer anyway. Worth looking into if you need either ink or another printer anyhow?

The Canon Pixma I already have prints dead on color by the way. The cartridges are killer though. A pair of low capacity ones goes for $45. The color one is combined so you have to toss it when any of the colors runs out. I think most of the photoprinters have separate tanks?

Yes, I have a Canon Pixma MP530 and all the cartridges are individual. They seem to go very fast, but I do quite a bit of printing. I refill my own as the cost of cartridges are just too ridiculous.

I used to refill my own. I did it for a long time without any problems. Then, it seemed like the cartridge manufacturers started to deliberately make it more difficult to open the cartridges up. I had more than one cartridge leak into my printer and make a huge mess. It got to be more trouble than it was worth.

I once read an article somewhere that compared to prices of different liquids per gallon. Printer ink was by far the highest at something ridiculous like $2000/gallon.