And here's someone making excuses for a billion dollar company based on nothing but imagination. HP isn't your friend, they're only driven to seek profit.
What's more likely, that there's a legitimate reason the printer needs a subscription or that the printer company is just trying to nickle and dime the end user again to squeeze every penny out of them without providing additional value?
BTW when one of our offices large multifunction printer has issues we call the vendor that maintains it, NOT the company that manufactured it.