Not a lie - its how the work the economics out. Lower the upfront cost of getting you on their product. The net present value of all the ink payments / subscription services is the value of the product. They probably have little to no margin on the actual printer purchase.
Items drop in price as more manufacturers pop up- only now they lie to us and tell us the price has stayed the same for over 15 years now, but magically they need to shove ads at us to offset the price? GTFO.
Most tvs are dirt cheap to make. In fact it's probably the OS they all design for every tv now that makes the price go up.
Companies screw us all from every possible angle and people defend this shit.
Companies used to care about customer satisfaction because they needed us, but thanks to regulatory capture they obviously couldn't care less about any of us, they just want as much money as they can squeeze out of us.