Well Terrement, as with any newish technology, there are learning curves and growing pains.
There are indeed 3D Printers R Us businesses. Search for the term 3D Hub.
The thing is, the tech is still newish, and machines can be finicky. What if that building only costs $5 USD to print yourself, and on the third one it chokes and hoses the print. So now you have spent $15 USD to get only two buildings. But you quoted $5 USD each. So you just lost some money. Probably need to charge $10 USD per building to account for time and trouble and waste. And that just doubled the price.
As a hobby, my time is free, so I can do it and putter about, and get my buildings. But if I were charging you for my time and effort, I need to account for the failed prints, and my time.
So unlike a copy place, where it is an exact science, and you take in that 100 page full-color thing and want 10 copies, and they have no issues, 3D printing is not that smooth. Most of the 3D hubs charge quite a bit.
So for the home hobby guy, 3D files and prints can produce some great terrain cheaply. But paying someone else to print it for you takes a lot of the savings out of the equation.
I bought my first 3D printer for about $300 USD last November. It does really well on dungeon tiles. I have branched out to sci-fi terrain, and that is looking good too. Will soon start printing modern buildings for a Walking Dead game.
Ultimately the printer will pay for itself,a nd I love the idea of owning the files to I can print as many as I want. As printers get better, those files will still work great.
