The "cleaning" basically involves moving the printhead over a receptacle with a sponge in it (it's called a spittoon, seriously) and firing all the nozzles for a short time while suction from a platen-driven vacuum pump sucks on them (that's why the feed rollers spin when it's doing this.) It uses a ridiculously large amount of ink in the process too - Google "waste ink container" for some further reading.
--EDIT-- @DSMan195276 I cannot reply to your message (we're too far down the thread) - but the sensible less wasteful thing to do would be to offer the clean action as an option, not as a default on every startup.
For example, laundry detergent companies mark their measuring caps to measure out how detergent then you actually need, but companies found that if they didn't put any mark on the caps at all people on average assumed they needed more detergent then even the company said you should use, which was already more then you needed. People just have no reference point to guess when these types of things need to be done.
I wouldn't be so sure about that - I've seen a lot of office workers who probably don't have any idea how printers work know to take the toner cartridge of a laser printer out and rock it a few times when the printouts start to fade.
To me the biggest annoyance with cleaning (besides the ink waste) is how long it takes, and how difficult it is to do a test pattern print - usually it's a long cycle of "push cleaning button, wait a minute or more, then go back to the computer to fiddle with the disgustingly bloated software to get the test pattern option".
What I'd prefer is a simple pushbutton that starts cleaning the moment you hold it down, and keeps cleaning as long as it's held down. Next to it could be a "print nozzle check" button. Instruct the users to use these when streaks start showing up in the output, and there will probably be far less ink wasted as a result. (There will always be the idiots who lean on the cleaning button until the cartridges empty, but that's a problem of the existing system of fixed-length cleaning cycles too.)
Well, progress would be already an excessively optimistic concept. There's no need to imagine conspiracies - one just need to observe how cartridges stop working before being fully depleted, or how ink is sold at ridiculously inflated prices.
And yes, given the price per oz of ink the process is quite expensive (I've heard that it is as high as 0.25/cleaning). And in the least expensive Canon printers the "waste ink" sponge is irreplacable leading to a planned obsolescence of the printer itself. Most of the 'key' ink jet patents have expired so it may be possible for someone to build a printer that is more economical but so far no one has. I suspect if they externalized the true cost of the printer and avoided the ink subsidy that they would not sell enough printers to stay in business.
I chuckled at the idea of using an old 24 pin dot matrix (or why not go seriously old school and use a line printer) printer, it is informative to note that people used inkjet printers that broke down a lot rather than use the older dot matrix printers. Granted the Canon system sucks, the Epson system is a bit better but not by much, HP, well HP can't really afford to lose any margins in their printer business.
So perhaps there is an opportunity here for a new printer from a new company.
How much "letter quality" printing do I need in an age of emailed PDF's?
Is futzing with consumables at the expense of flow better than noise? For me, I don't think so. I'm looking anew at printing like I came to recently look anew at the command line. There are tradeoffs, and for me one of those with home lasers and inkjets is loss of flow.
If I wanted old-school misery, we'd be talking pen plotters.
