I’ve generally been happy with my Epson Stylus R300 printer. I chose it because of its ability to print onto printable CD-R/DVD-R media, which wasn’t common at the time. As with all inkjet printers, though, it subjects the owner to the Inkjet Conspiracy.
Today I tried to print a receipt, and the printer’s maintenance LED came on. The display showed that the printer wanted a new yellow ink cartridge. I found this extremely irritating, as I was only trying to print in black, but when the printer wants a color ink cartridge, there’s no way to dissuade it. Fortunately I had a spare yellow ink cartridge handy.
As soon as I put the new yellow cartridge in, it decided that it wanted all four of the other color ink cartridges replaced also.  I haven’t looked at the cartridge status recently, but from times past I know that I definitely don’t use the colors equally. I’m fairly certain that the other color cartridges weren’t out of ink, or even to the limit where the printer considers them to be out of ink, but rather it seems that the printer has just decided that it is time for it to demand new cartridges. The manufacturer would probably claim that it does this to ensure the quality of the output by preventing you from using outdated ink, but rather than refusing to print at all, it should just give a warning that the ink is old and might not match the quality normally expected.