It's more the printer *companies* that are evil. Printers from the 90s and early 2000s were still pretty good. They had problems with paper jams, but that's not really surprising when you're moving a physical object around like that. The models designed for office use were really sturdy and built to handle a work environment that was still mostly based around paper. So, they expected to be used heavily. Since then, they've cheaped out on a lot of the components because printing is much less common so they're not expected to handle as much heavy work. But, more importantly, the DMCA has allowed manufacturers to load them up with DRM that refuses to use any ink that isn't sold by the printer manufacturer.