Gouging doesn't benefit HP in the long run either because people do (eventually) work out that HP printers are an out and out rip off and buy from other people and HP go to the wall. TBH I'm surprised that HP didn't go to the wall about 10 or 15 years ago.
It's amusing to note that at least 3 people here using *old* HP printers because they were built well and and don't have all the walled garden / lock the sucker in crap, but no-one has chipped in to say that they'll buy a new HP printer. John Deere (big green tractors) are also busy finding out the hard way that this lock-in model doesn't work. In their case it's more a lock-in to their support network than DRM on parts, but there is an element of that as well. Farmers in the US are still buying John Deere tractors, but they're buying old, sometimes decades old, JD tractors because they can fix them themselves and not lose a harvest because the nearest approved technician is a 2 hour flight away and won't be able fix the bloody thing when he gets to it.
Having spent much more (several times, I think) on cartridges over the years than my old HP LaserJet cost to buy, despite it only being B&W & having been able to buy knock-offs for much less than HP originals for most of that time, I'm keenly aware that the profits in printers are made on the ink or toner, not the printer.
I'd rather pay the real price for a printer (no cross-subsidy from ink/toner, but a decent profit margin) & the same markup on ink/toner as on printers. That'd be transparent, instead of real costs being hidden, & why should one set of customers be expected to subsidise others?
It'd free manufacturers from the problem of cheap ink or toner taking away their profits. No need to lock customers in if you can sell at close to the price of the knock-offs with the assurance that your ink is the real thing, with none of the potential risk of dodgy cheap ink clogging your nozzles, or whatever.