The funny part is that there’s very little reason to actually buy a barrel of lube. In porn, they just mix their own lube using distilled water (available cheaply from virtually any grocery or hardware store) and a dissolvable powder. There’s not a good reason to ship wet lube in bulk, because freight shipping is calculated by weight and you’re essentially just paying to ship water. The added benefit is that the porn makers can mix the lube to be a thinner or thicker consistency, depending on their specific needs.
For the curious, look up J-lube, X-lube, K-lube, or Fist Lubricant Powder. And yes, all of the above are available for purchase on Amazon.
And to drive the point home that you’re just paying for freight shipping… J-lube powder is currently $26.77 for 10oz, which makes 10 liters of lube when mixed per the manufacturer’s recommended dosage. So $26.77 for 10 liters, plus probably $3 for the distilled water you need to mix it with. Let’s round up to an even $30 in total. The barrel is currently $1775.32 for 7080fl.oz, or ~209.4 liters. So the barrel is ~$8.47 per liter, while the dry powder mix is ~$3.00 per liter. The barrel is almost 3x as much per liter as the dry powder.
You actually can’t sell third-party printers legally, because all printers will include an ink fingerprint which can be traced back to that specific printer. So if someone prints a ransom note or counterfeits cash with it, the FBI will be knocking on their door by the end of the day.
There’s literally a certification process to be allowed to sell printers, and one of the biggest criteria for that certification is agreeing to maintain that fingerprint database. One of the other big criteria is that the printer needs to be able to recognize and refuse to print images of cash, to prevent counterfeiting. If you try to print an image of a dollar bill, the printer’s firmware will refuse to continue the print job. The issue is that this certification process also ensures there’s a de facto near duopoly on printers, which leads to BS like HP making it increasingly difficult to use affordable ink. They can be blatantly anti-consumer, because they’re protected from any competition.
There’s a reason HP hasn’t already been priced out by some cheap Chinese competitor who is able to undercut the competition. And it’s not because of the difficulty in manufacturing or the price of components. It’s because no other companies are allowed to sell printers.