Oh, I get that, but look at it from the point of view of an otherwise healthy person who had just a single routine office visit all year.
$300 with no insurance or $1290 with insurance ($100 monthly premium plus the $90 bill from the doctor).
I tend to go through enough that it’s something I actively keep an eye on. I buy toner in two-packs. Within a few weeks or putting the second one in, I’ll pick up another two-pack from Amazon and it just sits on a shelf until I need it.
I’d like to second this. I am very nostalgic for the days when KFC offered white or dark meat and when I asked for wings, they’d pile 10 on the plate. Now, 5 wings cost more than any other chicken part. Sad times.
In the same vein(heh), flank or skirt steak used to be considered a lesser cut, so it was a good deal, and made a tasty alternative to more expensive cuts. Then it became trendy and the cost per lb. shot way up.
With ink and toner it is not pure economics, though. As @Chronos mentioned, the manufacturers use DRM and other legal and technical means to create monopolies around ink and toner. Once the monopoly is in place, they can charge artificially high prices, as there are no longer functioning market forces at work.
Another example of monopolies leading to things costing way more than they should is broadband in the US. Cable companies have used lobbying and such to create local monopolies on broadband. This allows them to charge high prices for poor products. In the few places in the US where there is real competition for broadband, the prices and product are much better.
Yeah, when I was a kid that was about the only way we ate steak. Those, and chuck.
Our market used to take strips of skirt steak and make them into pinwheels. Mighty tasty. My mom once had the broiler tray pulled out to remove them after cooking once, got distracted for a second, and the beagle snatched one and was out through the doggie door in lightning quick flash.
There was a time lobster was served to prisoners because it was deemed almost worthless.
I remember when there were “cheap” cuts of beef like a skirt steak. Beef got expensive and people figured out ways to make the cheap cuts really good. Now they are not cheap cuts anymore. Just slightly less expensive cuts.
How expensive are chicken wings in the US? I can buy high quality, natural split ones in Canada for four (American) bucks a pound. Not the nothing they once were, but easy and delicious to fry at home. The processed ones are more expensive, and the pub-restaurant ones have gone from a dollar (Canadian) each where they were once a quarter, cheaper on certain nights. I could see that being more of a thing.
My local supermarket has them for $5.49/lb.
That seems to be about 7 wings per pound (not exact but close) so about $0.80 per wing.
Of course, there are other costs to make hot wings (butter, hot sauce, oil, etc.).
That seems expensive since I remember $0.25 wings at some restaurants (maybe it was a loss-leader). I know there has been inflation but not that much.
I graduated from college in upstate New York (Capital District area) in 1988 and buffalo wings were cheap. Once a couple of other guys and I ordered a hundred wings for delivery at about 10pm. That cost us ten bucks, which gives you an idea of how cheap they were and how much we could eat back then.
I notice that drumsticks and thighs—same brand, same package type—are $3.69/lb.
Wow!
That is a MUCH better deal (not least because there is more meat on them)! And I have plenty of really good recipes for those. (Here’s one)
But I admit I do love Buffalo wings. That said I rarely deep fry at home. Disposing of oil is not easy for me (I live in a hi-rise).
My BiL was “marked” as a poor kid, because he had lobster in his lunchbox.
Who IS it easy for? When we were newlyweds we made a couple of deep fried dishes, then looked at this massive quantity of used oil, and decided deep fried food is for restaurants.
I like chicken wings. Not buffalo wings, since i don’t do spicy, but the wing on a roast chicken is very nice. I leave them loose so they get very crispy. Since no one else in my family likes wings, i get two every time i roast a chicken. Except the one i just put in the oven is missing the wing tip 
which is the best part.
I don’t care for drum sticks. Too many tendons, and they get dry, not crispy, since they are lower in fat than the wings.
Anyway, the best value on a chicken these days is the thigh. Breasts are more in fashion, so they cost more. But thighs are meaty and easy to prepare.
YES!! At fried chicken places, wings were a gift to a hungry poor dude. No more.
The Porterhouse used to be the most expensive steak (Not counting Filet minon) then Tbone, and Rib steak was relatively cheap. No more.
Cars today costs too much, due to supply chains, etc.
Obviously, you’ve never heard of pig ears as “soul food” or cowfoot in Jamaican cuisine
Put the grease back in the bottle, throw the bottle in the garbage. What’s hard about that?
Just don’t throw it down the drain.
Our building has rules about that sort of thing.
Oil can leak when going down the chute (hi-rise so dropping an oil bottle 30 stories can break it). Coats the chute in oil and it turns rancid and is nasty. Expensive cleaning we all need to pay for. And, as you noted, down the drain is right out. A clogged pipe can affect many units.
Also, it drops into a compactor. That can burst the thing containing oil and again, gets nasty and is a problem.
Not a problem when you toss it in your suburban garbage can and it is something the garbage truck deals with far away from your home.
Starts with an ‘S’…
The price of chicken wings went nuts during the pandemic. A friend’s brewery stayed afloat by selling takeout, and wings (smoked, not deep fried) were one of their big sellers.
They finally had to list wings as “current market price” and the price went up and down like a yo-yo. Things have since stabilized.
The price of higher education is absurdly high for what you are actually getting. For what they’re charging, I should be picked up by limo and taken to class, my science astronomy teacher should be Neil deGrasse Tyson, and the cafeteria in which I dine should be an upscale restaurant with a white table cloth and a waiter.