Just recently brought my brother a cheap cannon inkjet [1] and that didn't come with a USB cable, I don't think (esp at the lower end) they give two craps about bundling a cable any more because either the customer already has one (which my brother did) or they will just pick one up at the same time as getting the printer.
> Also, this reminds me of a common CPU manufacturing practice; most CPUs from a generation are the exact same, except that the ones with flaws in them will have that part of the CPU disabled / severed and the unit sold as a slower and cheaper model.
Happens in the oscilloscope market all the time, create one unit per "family" of products and keep locking features away until you have created every model between the bells and whistles and the budget models (Obv its hard to "software lock" extra channels :-P but I've seen even sample rate/memory depth being software limited, and big jumps in sample size/memory depth will often have different internals), as for placing a sticker on a unit, well the printer out of the box is covered in stickers to prevent things moving about during shipping so I don't see it that much of a PITA to add one more over a USB port to encourage the user onto the network to make it easier for it to phone home. (though that doesn't "explain" the PSU case, just gonna presume that it doesn't cost too much in labor where the PSU is manufactured/packaged to add a sticker)
[1] yes, yes, I know, shoulda gone laser/led... And if it was for me I would have gone laser/led, But he aint the brightest tool in the shed, the cannon was cheap (so if it breaks its not the end of the world), printhead is in the cartridge so if it clogs, its just a new cartridge, and his old cheap inkjet lasted over 10 years before that died. And while he don't print a ton, he wants colour, not take up a ton of space, and not cost a fuck ton (he aint too bothered about on-going costs as he will just buy 3rd party ink from the local supermarket. So Inkjet it was.
side note: went cannon because fuck HP's Instant Ink BS :-P
