I’m not sure it’s a corner case. I print a handful of times a year. I’ve had my $80 Dell laser about 10 years and just had to replace the toner and buy a second ream of paper. This seems about average for people I know.
If I’d bought an inkjet I suspect I’d have had to buy a new cartridge at least once a year wiping out any savings on the printer itself even if I had gone for the more expensive Brother (which would have been less of a pain on a Mac now that the old Dell drivers barely work on current macOS.)
