Epson 3880 sudden compete single color stoppage

I had a case with (probably) my Epson RX595 - one colour stopped on all jets part way through a page. The ink monitor showed ~40% remaining. After trying a few ineffective things, I installed a new cartridge and normality was restored.

Thinking about this later, the only explanation I could think of was that the cartridge was not full when I bought it. My assumed understanding is:

The printer looks at a newly-installed cartridge, and knows how much ink SHOULD BE available - it has no way to measure that directly. As ink is consumed the printer subtracts the volume used in the current job (which it does know) from the volume ASSUMED to be available, and saves that as the new value for ASSUMED to be available. If the cartridge was not 100% (+ a small quantity leeway) full when first installed, then at some point the ACTUAL available volume will be insufficient to complete the page, and all jets for that colour will be blank.