It is in fact often intentional. It’s basically the same business model as printers. They make money from the refills, not the machine. Obviously people want to save money with generic paper, so they make sure the dispenser only works right with their paper.

What the dispenser manufacturer doesn’t consider is that whoever orders the paper doesn’t use the dispenser, so they don’t give a shit whether the dispenser works well or not. In fact, it not dispensing well saves even more money on paper!

The brown paper ones with the big pull down lever that gives you one sheet per pull are great. Everyone should do that.