So you'll buy a replacement filter to make the warning go away, a filter you can't (easily) buy from anyone besides the original manufacturer since they DRMed it? Obviously HEPA filters do expire eventually, but there's a perverse incentive here for the warning to undershoot the actual useful life of the filter.
Hypothetically, yes, there's a perverse incentive, but is that what is actually happening?
A clogged filter can stress the fan motor which can A) increase power consumption and B)reduce overall product life.
Most consumers aren't really capable of this type of nuance.
A clogged filter is obviously full of dust and grime, anyone who can use a vacuum cleaner can understand that
you got it completely backwards, unless you have a very fancy and expensive ECM motor.
Increasing resistance decreases power draw, as the fan needs to do less work. You can test this by hooking up a vaccum cleaner to a killawatt and blocking the intake.
There may be concerns about cooling the motor, but it really doesn't take that much air movement to dissipate heat.
Why would anyone do that? Seems like a waste of a hot water heater that probably has a lot of life left.
People that do this probably throw out food the moment it hits the best before date too.
If you want a speaker you don't buy Sonos and say I turned off the drm, firmware and added a headphone jack.
If you want filtered air for cheap you buy a box fan with HEPA.