there is a way to clean the sponge and reset the counter with 3rd party software. epson could have just put a menu option to reset that into the printer. but they might have already solved that problem. my printer is way newer than the ones i saw articles and videos about.

10$ every 18.000 pages sounds like a good deal though.

https://youtu.be/sDsdLoaMX-w?si=KyoMarW-1rwYZURY