For Solyndra, I believe that it was best to let them fail. Their product was interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful, like how steam cars didn't pan out over internal combustion, and EVs are only making a return today.
It's a sunk costs fallacy vs prospective costs. At some point you have to just stop throwing money away and let them fail. If 9 out of your 10 projects succeed in stuff like this, you're doing way better than industry standards - the normal ratio is the opposite.
You can build an EVSE for well under $100. The problem is you need certified parts, materials, construction methods and quality controls to maintain certification; certs are not a one-time cost and it balloons the costs all the way up the supply chain.
Certification still 'rounds to zero', and building an EVSE for under $100 is probably a stretch without using 'junkyard parts'. The copper alone will run you more in most cases. Most electronics you buy today are certified anyways, and it doesn't add that much to the cost. And no, not all of the parts and materials need to be 'certified' for the end product to be.
My point remains - generally speaking, if a hobbyist can put it together for $X using new parts, so can't industry, assuming they're making enough of them.
I'm pretty confident that a typical home will never have a 480V/3Ph electrical service at 400+ amps.
That could end up changing of the 'EV revolution' really takes off. Still, I think that you're forgetting that Tesla(and others) are starting to offer substantial in-home battery packs.
You might not be able to pull 100kW from the utility line, but 20kW from the line + 80kW from a battery is certainly possible.
While you certainly COULD build an EVSE for cheap, you will not be able to build one that is certified compliant with all codes and regulatory requirements.
I think the point is that if a hobbyist paying retail prices for the parts can put one together for $5k, once you have a certified compliant design and are making them in a factory with automation while paying wholesaler/bulk prices for the parts, the assembly cost per charger should be about what the hobbyist can make it for.
It's a good rule of thumb that assembly labor costs round to zero for factory produced equipment, so looking at the component cost is a pretty good indicator of actual cost, as opposed to charged price.
As for L3 chargers, there are exactly zero such units available for domestic installation - and there never will be - so that point is DOA.
Yeah, 640k will be enough for everyone... (never say never).
You don't need locked down borders in this case. I'd control the 'gravy train' very simply: 1. You don't get the BIG unless you're a citizen. Go home if you can't make it here. 2. You pay the same taxes as citizens. Though you could also give them a credit 'equal' to the BIG, but non-refundable.
How much incentive is there to immigrate under these two simple rules?
More people fit on the 747 than on a 787, so it takes fewer trips to haul the same number of people. The 747 makes a better cargo aircraft for large items. It is complicated. They will continue to fly for the rest of my lifetime I am sure.
I've read that the 747 makes for a better cargo aircraft than the A-380 - the Airbus model can't handle the weight/density of cargo fit for it's volume, so it's inefficient. You also can't set it up to load as efficiently as the 747. So for cargo craft, the 747 remains king.
Where the 787 is 'king' is where there's enough passengers to fill a 787, but not a 747 or A380. 467 seats vs 304. 525 for an A380 in 'typical' 3 class seating.
What does that mean? More direct flights, fewer transfers. FEWER miles flown for the number of destinations reached. You 'need' the A380s for specific routes at certain airports, but in many cases the airlines can simply offer two 787 flights, assuming the runways aren't saturated at the route's airports. This increases customer satisfaction.
Indeed, more routes translates to effectively more 'hubs', and the less dependent you are on the hub&spoke system, the less need you have for the really massive planes going between hubs. So the 787 competes with the A380 not on capacity, but by changing the landscape of the market.
Well, I figure that those are very good reasons that ShanghaiBill put scare quotes around "libertarian".
IE he's the most libertarian of the bunch, doesn't mean that he's actually one of us.
Then again - Defense budget: It says right in the article that he's doing it as a compromise/appeasement to the 'war hawks'. He balances that with other cuts that we'd generally approve of (though I'd drastically reform the EPA, not cripple it via fund cutting).
On Gas exports - REMOVING government obstacles against businesses is libertarian. Note that he didn't say 'subsidize' gas exports. So REMOVING the need for permits and such would be ' government involvement in the market on a scale never before attempted'?
Remember, speeches are limited, it's very difficult to shove every shade of meaning into them.
1. The Soviet Union controlled a heck of a lot more than just setting a bottom to your income. 2. Sure there would be. They just wouldn't be willing to do it for ten cents an hour. Bakers aren't minimum wage employees as is.
To be fair, food stamps are a step up from when I was a kid. Back then, you'd go to a government warehouse and were given staples like cheese(unsliced blocks of generic american), powdered milk, and such.
The idea is buried in the belief that if you're not capable of earning enough money to support yourself that you're also unable to budget and decide on a 'non-wasteful' way to spend the money yourself. Ergo, housing allowance(you have to live in a suitable house!), foodstamps(you need to spend this on food, not housing/clothing!), etc... Never mind that locking up the money that way is actually MORE wasteful(what if you don't eat that much this month, or you just harvested your garden?), not to mention the administration expenses.
That's where you chalk it up to 'efficiency'. Attempting to give 'everybody' the exact minimum amount THEY need to achieve a specified minimal quality of life is basically the current system, and it's hugely expensive in overhead.
Accept that living standards *won't* be the same, that they might be able to live pretty good in Mississippi while it'd be truly terrible in NYC or SF, that somebody dependent upon the BIG might actually end up MOVING away from those expensive locations(freeing up the slot for somebody who can afford it), is just part of the benefits.
Does that include the soviet union? While it wasn't called basic income, it was a guaranteed unfireable for life job with a paycheck.
And you don't see the differences? Let's say you're on the BIG. It sucks by itself, so you get a job. Hey! More money is great! But you're a bad worker, so you get fired, and end up back on the sucky BIG. But you've learned, you get a different job, and because you like this one more, you do a good job and get a raise. Great! But then the company owner retires and shuts down the business, so you're laid off - but you don't have to worry about losing 'everything', because the BIG is still there. So you don't worry yourself into being sick.
Is this why the Soviet Union won the cold war, and the former United States has broken itself up into small nations, with no one wanting to get everyone back together but Massachusetts and their insane dictator?
Apples and Oranges my friend. This is a socialist idea, not a communist one. The Soviet Union was a 'command economy', dictating production and spending at nearly all levels.
This is 'merely' a different form of welfare system, whose proponents believe that it will help people better while decreasing administrative costs, to the point that it's much more sustainable financially. Especially over in Europe, where 'generous' welfare systems are too expensive as is.
IMHO, basic income is a more libertarian and free-market solution to the problems of the job market than the current nannying of the unemployed.
As a self-identified moderate libertarian, I agree with you. Once you make the basic choice that it's the government's role to support those who cannot support themselves, for whatever reason, then it becomes a question of how you do so at a minimum of cost, interference, and waste.
It's been shown that the fewer restrictions you place on welfare, the closer you get to just plain money, the less all three are. It's also more free. Ergo, just plain cash is pretty much the best option.
I don't think people will be quitting their jobs to live on the 'free money'!
Indeed not. One thing that I have noted to be lacking is the idea that the minimum income payment could be tuned. Too many people unemployed? Research suggests too many people are happy sitting on their asses at home? Nudge the payment down a notch. By the same token, if you have too many people who are actively looking for work because living on the BIG sucks, and the result of too many people looking for too few jobs, resulting in lower wages(and jobs aren't coming in from outside because of cheap(er) labor), you might want to consider notching it UP a bit.
What? Increase payments? Sure - by increasing payments, more will be satisfied by it. This reduces the worker pool, increasing the bargaining power of the remaining workers. In addition, more money to the poorest means more purchasing of goods and services by them, which increases demand for workers to produce said goods and services.
And a lot of people unload their stuff on Craigslist, eBay, or a yard sale when they move.
Depends on it's value. Is it's value less than the cost(to me) to ship it over, or put into storage until I get back?
I'm unlikely to be able to unload a nice laser printer for more than the price difference between shipping mine and buying a new one.
Plus, well, it might be stupid but the military paid to have my stuff moved, not 'replace stuff that it would be cheaper to buy new at my destination'.
For that matter, replacing something like a DVD collection back in the day would be rather difficult when you'd have region 1 coded DVDs of movies and such that were never released(at least not in English) at the destination.
See for example GlovePIE, whose EULA had restrictions on use by the military last time I checked.
Given what I had to do to FIND the EULA, I think that any military personnel are just going to ignore that clause. I certainly would have as an airman living in the dorms. You're not allowed to hide clauses like that in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
If Xerox was stupid enough to make an anti-military EULA, that would only strengthen my position of suing to get my money back.
But we feel there's a difference between being a bum ass teen who can live with his parents and spend it as allowance and a war veteran suffering from crippling PTSD
I'll note that I view disability(the war vet suffering from PTSD) different from welfare.
No one doubts that many thing improved during the experiment. Improving the quality of life in a small community by pumping in free money from the outside is easy. The hard part is making it work as a system
Well, it was more or less a deliberate experiment, therefore limited. I, for one, think that fewer teens working and more graduating school to be a good thing. Mothers spending more time with their new-borns isn't bad either. The lowered medical costs alone provide some interesting possibilities.
However, the benefits observed were, I believe, enough to justify a wider-scale experiment. Finland, pop 5.44M, sounds like a good experimental size for a full country before you start on Canada (35M) or the USA (319M)
1. Doing this in secret is underhanded, and they should be upfront, Despite the negative reaction by some members of the public ("it's unfair that I'm paying more than X"), there is nothing wrong with a company trying for market segmentation. They should tell the complainers to grow up
Xerox, tell it's customers to 'grow up' in response to their complaining that Xerox reduced the value of the printer they purchased from them, in order to profit more?
I used to be military. I was stationed 'all over the place'. I would not be happy that my printer doesn't work with the local cartridges 'just because'. Hell, I could buy region-free DVD players because of this. People DO move between countries.
I'd be asking Xerox for a refund on their printer due to 'hidden restriction'. If they refused, I'd sue. Then write my representatives and ask that the printer companies be put under the same restrictions as the car companies. Who are NOT allowed to prevent you from using parts and supplies not from them.
The cost of operating a plane does not significantly change based on passenger demand.
No, but expanding capacity is indeed hugely expensive. Once you've filled every seat on a plane, costs become a lot more linear. If there's 'huge demand', first you trade up to a larger airplane, but this isn't generally cost effective for 1 more passenger, but going from a 20 seat commuter to a 30 seat one with 1 seat empty will be cost effective. Or a 150 seat 100% full craft to a 90% full 200 seat one.
After you're flying a bigger plane, you then look at 2 flights. But extra planes are expensive. Then, once you've filled the airport up, your next step is more runways, terminals, and all that, which is hugely expensive.
Increasing prices during high demand periods helps pay for the capacity that's only demanded during that period, it's very much NOT pure price gouging. By charging more during those periods, people like me who doesn't care about the holiday period that much will pick non-holiday periods to fly, evening out demand. By charging less during low demand periods, they get value-seekers flying during those periods, again, evening out demand, allowing steadier use of their aircraft and personnel. Beyond standard tricks like ensuring 'every' aircraft possible is flying during high demand periods, as opposed to being in maintenance, for example.
Why do airlines charge more for last minute tickets? Because they cost the airlines more. In order to even offer the service, they can't overbook flights as much, you often have to take inefficient routing, and they can't anticipate those sales. It's like dinners that are $25 pre-order, $30 at the door. Why the extra $5? Because pre-ordered tickets are a known factor - they know how many are showing up, so they have supplies for that. They have to guess at how many people will just show up, so that can mean wasted food, thus the higher charge - and don't forget the factor that they want you to pre-order.
Oh yeah, and if you're buying last minute at the airport you're GOING to show up, they can't apply the 'might not show up but we get to keep your money' discount.
Perhaps, but it's a choice by printer companies to save money and simplify maintenance. It'd be a bit like if lawnmowers had a combined sump/oil filter that came pre-filled with oil. Nice, simple, and quick to replace. But perhaps the filter lasts longer than the oil, or vice versa.
In a big printer, like a car or riding lawnmower, having them be separate makes sense. Diesel Trucks(and I'm not talking pickups here), often have different maintenance intervals for their filters and oil. For that matter, they'll often TEST their oil to make sure it's still good, because testing makes financial sense when you're looking at a 40 quart oil change vs a 5 quart one. In many cases they'll replace the oil filter only, pour in a new quart of oil to replace the oil lost in the filter, and keep on going.
When it comes to cartridges, there's 'usually' 1-3 components. Toner, drum, and waste toner storage. The problem you can get with remanufactured ones is if the toner (2k pages) is put into a heavily recycled cartridge without also replacing the drum (~40k pages) and emptying the waste toner.
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Your post doesn't make much sense without units. 50 what? Presumably cents. 25 of electricity? Dollars? kWh? What?
Back when I costed it out, 'ancillary' was about $1-2/watt for the wiring, inverter, etc... It got cheaper the bigger you went.
You need a sarcasm or humor tag for that post. ;)
For Solyndra, I believe that it was best to let them fail. Their product was interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful, like how steam cars didn't pan out over internal combustion, and EVs are only making a return today.
It's a sunk costs fallacy vs prospective costs. At some point you have to just stop throwing money away and let them fail. If 9 out of your 10 projects succeed in stuff like this, you're doing way better than industry standards - the normal ratio is the opposite.
You can build an EVSE for well under $100. The problem is you need certified parts, materials, construction methods and quality controls to maintain certification; certs are not a one-time cost and it balloons the costs all the way up the supply chain.
Certification still 'rounds to zero', and building an EVSE for under $100 is probably a stretch without using 'junkyard parts'. The copper alone will run you more in most cases. Most electronics you buy today are certified anyways, and it doesn't add that much to the cost. And no, not all of the parts and materials need to be 'certified' for the end product to be.
My point remains - generally speaking, if a hobbyist can put it together for $X using new parts, so can't industry, assuming they're making enough of them.
I'm pretty confident that a typical home will never have a 480V/3Ph electrical service at 400+ amps.
That could end up changing of the 'EV revolution' really takes off. Still, I think that you're forgetting that Tesla(and others) are starting to offer substantial in-home battery packs.
You might not be able to pull 100kW from the utility line, but 20kW from the line + 80kW from a battery is certainly possible.
I don't find it too terribly bad, at least in my area.
Of course, in my area it's not choosing between Judge X and Judge Y. It's 'Do you wish for Judge X to remain seated for another 4 years'?
It takes a lot for the judge to lose this vote, but they have in the past.
While you certainly COULD build an EVSE for cheap, you will not be able to build one that is certified compliant with all codes and regulatory requirements.
I think the point is that if a hobbyist paying retail prices for the parts can put one together for $5k, once you have a certified compliant design and are making them in a factory with automation while paying wholesaler/bulk prices for the parts, the assembly cost per charger should be about what the hobbyist can make it for.
It's a good rule of thumb that assembly labor costs round to zero for factory produced equipment, so looking at the component cost is a pretty good indicator of actual cost, as opposed to charged price.
As for L3 chargers, there are exactly zero such units available for domestic installation - and there never will be - so that point is DOA.
Yeah, 640k will be enough for everyone...
(never say never).
Simple, libertarians are properly for limited governments, not weak ones. If you want a better answer, ask a better question.
You don't need locked down borders in this case. I'd control the 'gravy train' very simply:
1. You don't get the BIG unless you're a citizen. Go home if you can't make it here.
2. You pay the same taxes as citizens. Though you could also give them a credit 'equal' to the BIG, but non-refundable.
How much incentive is there to immigrate under these two simple rules?
More people fit on the 747 than on a 787, so it takes fewer trips to haul the same number of people. The 747 makes a better cargo aircraft for large items. It is complicated. They will continue to fly for the rest of my lifetime I am sure.
I've read that the 747 makes for a better cargo aircraft than the A-380 - the Airbus model can't handle the weight/density of cargo fit for it's volume, so it's inefficient. You also can't set it up to load as efficiently as the 747. So for cargo craft, the 747 remains king.
Where the 787 is 'king' is where there's enough passengers to fill a 787, but not a 747 or A380. 467 seats vs 304. 525 for an A380 in 'typical' 3 class seating.
What does that mean? More direct flights, fewer transfers. FEWER miles flown for the number of destinations reached. You 'need' the A380s for specific routes at certain airports, but in many cases the airlines can simply offer two 787 flights, assuming the runways aren't saturated at the route's airports. This increases customer satisfaction.
Indeed, more routes translates to effectively more 'hubs', and the less dependent you are on the hub&spoke system, the less need you have for the really massive planes going between hubs. So the 787 competes with the A380 not on capacity, but by changing the landscape of the market.
how could a european plane be built on lessons learned from a classified US military project???
Just because the plane overall is classified doesn't mean all development details for it are such.
Well, I figure that those are very good reasons that ShanghaiBill put scare quotes around "libertarian".
IE he's the most libertarian of the bunch, doesn't mean that he's actually one of us.
Then again - Defense budget: It says right in the article that he's doing it as a compromise/appeasement to the 'war hawks'. He balances that with other cuts that we'd generally approve of (though I'd drastically reform the EPA, not cripple it via fund cutting).
On Gas exports - REMOVING government obstacles against businesses is libertarian. Note that he didn't say 'subsidize' gas exports. So REMOVING the need for permits and such would be ' government involvement in the market on a scale never before attempted'?
Remember, speeches are limited, it's very difficult to shove every shade of meaning into them.
Even if I'm downloading it to torture the captives in my basement?
Oh wait...
1. The Soviet Union controlled a heck of a lot more than just setting a bottom to your income.
2. Sure there would be. They just wouldn't be willing to do it for ten cents an hour. Bakers aren't minimum wage employees as is.
To be fair, food stamps are a step up from when I was a kid. Back then, you'd go to a government warehouse and were given staples like cheese(unsliced blocks of generic american), powdered milk, and such.
The idea is buried in the belief that if you're not capable of earning enough money to support yourself that you're also unable to budget and decide on a 'non-wasteful' way to spend the money yourself. Ergo, housing allowance(you have to live in a suitable house!), foodstamps(you need to spend this on food, not housing/clothing!), etc... Never mind that locking up the money that way is actually MORE wasteful(what if you don't eat that much this month, or you just harvested your garden?), not to mention the administration expenses.
That's where you chalk it up to 'efficiency'. Attempting to give 'everybody' the exact minimum amount THEY need to achieve a specified minimal quality of life is basically the current system, and it's hugely expensive in overhead.
Accept that living standards *won't* be the same, that they might be able to live pretty good in Mississippi while it'd be truly terrible in NYC or SF, that somebody dependent upon the BIG might actually end up MOVING away from those expensive locations(freeing up the slot for somebody who can afford it), is just part of the benefits.
Does that include the soviet union? While it wasn't called basic income, it was a guaranteed unfireable for life job with a paycheck.
And you don't see the differences? Let's say you're on the BIG. It sucks by itself, so you get a job. Hey! More money is great! But you're a bad worker, so you get fired, and end up back on the sucky BIG. But you've learned, you get a different job, and because you like this one more, you do a good job and get a raise. Great! But then the company owner retires and shuts down the business, so you're laid off - but you don't have to worry about losing 'everything', because the BIG is still there. So you don't worry yourself into being sick.
Is this why the Soviet Union won the cold war, and the former United States has broken itself up into small nations, with no one wanting to get everyone back together but Massachusetts and their insane dictator?
Apples and Oranges my friend. This is a socialist idea, not a communist one. The Soviet Union was a 'command economy', dictating production and spending at nearly all levels.
This is 'merely' a different form of welfare system, whose proponents believe that it will help people better while decreasing administrative costs, to the point that it's much more sustainable financially. Especially over in Europe, where 'generous' welfare systems are too expensive as is.
IMHO, basic income is a more libertarian and free-market solution to the problems of the job market than the current nannying of the unemployed.
As a self-identified moderate libertarian, I agree with you. Once you make the basic choice that it's the government's role to support those who cannot support themselves, for whatever reason, then it becomes a question of how you do so at a minimum of cost, interference, and waste.
It's been shown that the fewer restrictions you place on welfare, the closer you get to just plain money, the less all three are. It's also more free. Ergo, just plain cash is pretty much the best option.
I don't think people will be quitting their jobs to live on the 'free money'!
Indeed not. One thing that I have noted to be lacking is the idea that the minimum income payment could be tuned. Too many people unemployed? Research suggests too many people are happy sitting on their asses at home? Nudge the payment down a notch. By the same token, if you have too many people who are actively looking for work because living on the BIG sucks, and the result of too many people looking for too few jobs, resulting in lower wages(and jobs aren't coming in from outside because of cheap(er) labor), you might want to consider notching it UP a bit.
What? Increase payments? Sure - by increasing payments, more will be satisfied by it. This reduces the worker pool, increasing the bargaining power of the remaining workers. In addition, more money to the poorest means more purchasing of goods and services by them, which increases demand for workers to produce said goods and services.
And a lot of people unload their stuff on Craigslist, eBay, or a yard sale when they move.
Depends on it's value. Is it's value less than the cost(to me) to ship it over, or put into storage until I get back?
I'm unlikely to be able to unload a nice laser printer for more than the price difference between shipping mine and buying a new one.
Plus, well, it might be stupid but the military paid to have my stuff moved, not 'replace stuff that it would be cheaper to buy new at my destination'.
For that matter, replacing something like a DVD collection back in the day would be rather difficult when you'd have region 1 coded DVDs of movies and such that were never released(at least not in English) at the destination.
See for example GlovePIE, whose EULA had restrictions on use by the military last time I checked.
Given what I had to do to FIND the EULA, I think that any military personnel are just going to ignore that clause. I certainly would have as an airman living in the dorms. You're not allowed to hide clauses like that in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
If Xerox was stupid enough to make an anti-military EULA, that would only strengthen my position of suing to get my money back.
But we feel there's a difference between being a bum ass teen who can live with his parents and spend it as allowance and a war veteran suffering from crippling PTSD
I'll note that I view disability(the war vet suffering from PTSD) different from welfare.
No one doubts that many thing improved during the experiment. Improving the quality of life in a small community by pumping in free money from the outside is easy. The hard part is making it work as a system
Well, it was more or less a deliberate experiment, therefore limited. I, for one, think that fewer teens working and more graduating school to be a good thing. Mothers spending more time with their new-borns isn't bad either. The lowered medical costs alone provide some interesting possibilities.
However, the benefits observed were, I believe, enough to justify a wider-scale experiment. Finland, pop 5.44M, sounds like a good experimental size for a full country before you start on Canada (35M) or the USA (319M)
I wouldn't peg it at 20% gaining from this.
For example, look at a program like WIC here in the states, that provides supplemental food to pregnant women and those with young infants.
2-3% of the population might be on the program at any given time, but 20% might be on it sometime in their lives.
Or unemployment - relatively few people on it at any given time, but 'most' workers are going to receive it at some point in their life.
1. Doing this in secret is underhanded, and they should be upfront, Despite the negative reaction by some members of the public ("it's unfair that I'm paying more than X"), there is nothing wrong with a company trying for market segmentation. They should tell the complainers to grow up
Xerox, tell it's customers to 'grow up' in response to their complaining that Xerox reduced the value of the printer they purchased from them, in order to profit more?
I used to be military. I was stationed 'all over the place'. I would not be happy that my printer doesn't work with the local cartridges 'just because'. Hell, I could buy region-free DVD players because of this. People DO move between countries.
I'd be asking Xerox for a refund on their printer due to 'hidden restriction'. If they refused, I'd sue. Then write my representatives and ask that the printer companies be put under the same restrictions as the car companies. Who are NOT allowed to prevent you from using parts and supplies not from them.
The cost of operating a plane does not significantly change based on passenger demand.
No, but expanding capacity is indeed hugely expensive. Once you've filled every seat on a plane, costs become a lot more linear. If there's 'huge demand', first you trade up to a larger airplane, but this isn't generally cost effective for 1 more passenger, but going from a 20 seat commuter to a 30 seat one with 1 seat empty will be cost effective. Or a 150 seat 100% full craft to a 90% full 200 seat one.
After you're flying a bigger plane, you then look at 2 flights. But extra planes are expensive. Then, once you've filled the airport up, your next step is more runways, terminals, and all that, which is hugely expensive.
Increasing prices during high demand periods helps pay for the capacity that's only demanded during that period, it's very much NOT pure price gouging. By charging more during those periods, people like me who doesn't care about the holiday period that much will pick non-holiday periods to fly, evening out demand. By charging less during low demand periods, they get value-seekers flying during those periods, again, evening out demand, allowing steadier use of their aircraft and personnel. Beyond standard tricks like ensuring 'every' aircraft possible is flying during high demand periods, as opposed to being in maintenance, for example.
Why do airlines charge more for last minute tickets? Because they cost the airlines more. In order to even offer the service, they can't overbook flights as much, you often have to take inefficient routing, and they can't anticipate those sales. It's like dinners that are $25 pre-order, $30 at the door. Why the extra $5? Because pre-ordered tickets are a known factor - they know how many are showing up, so they have supplies for that. They have to guess at how many people will just show up, so that can mean wasted food, thus the higher charge - and don't forget the factor that they want you to pre-order.
Oh yeah, and if you're buying last minute at the airport you're GOING to show up, they can't apply the 'might not show up but we get to keep your money' discount.
Perhaps, but it's a choice by printer companies to save money and simplify maintenance. It'd be a bit like if lawnmowers had a combined sump/oil filter that came pre-filled with oil. Nice, simple, and quick to replace. But perhaps the filter lasts longer than the oil, or vice versa.
In a big printer, like a car or riding lawnmower, having them be separate makes sense. Diesel Trucks(and I'm not talking pickups here), often have different maintenance intervals for their filters and oil. For that matter, they'll often TEST their oil to make sure it's still good, because testing makes financial sense when you're looking at a 40 quart oil change vs a 5 quart one. In many cases they'll replace the oil filter only, pour in a new quart of oil to replace the oil lost in the filter, and keep on going.
When it comes to cartridges, there's 'usually' 1-3 components. Toner, drum, and waste toner storage. The problem you can get with remanufactured ones is if the toner (2k pages) is put into a heavily recycled cartridge without also replacing the drum (~40k pages) and emptying the waste toner.