I'm part mechanical engineer and I 3D print things on a near daily basis. My job would be a lot slower and more cumbersome without it. Mind you this is all FDM.
I only played with resin printers briefly, and not only do they produce extremely brittle and off-dimenension parts, they are extremely messy and use chemicals that you really should think twice or three times or four times about having under the same roof as the one you sleep in.
With how useful FDM is to me, it seems really strange that resin printing's killer app has been "miniatures", like it's the niche it fell into after everyone bought one and discovered they aren't great for much else. I am in disbelief that people would willingly deal with resin printers just to do miniatures, like there's no way it could possibly be worth it even if you really like that hobby. It feels wrong even to refer to both under the same umbrella of 3D printing.
That said, if you're not regularly designing parts you need made and/or aren't a CAD user, I don't see much use in the average person having a 3D printer (I have 5 btw)
It sounds like you underestimate the enthusiasm for miniatures in general. There is a lot of demand for finely printed models––look at Tribes on MyMiniFactory, or the success of primarily 3D printed games like Trench Crusade.
On the other side of this _is_ the affordability of 3D printed miniatures. The linked-to article is salient/cogent/great, but the secondary topic at hand––lowering the price of entry for miniatures-based table top gaming––is still salient. 3D printing won't necessarily upend GW's business model, but it does provide an entry point that is more affordable by some calculus.
Bambu; their app and their website of things to print from your phone without any fuss, means that even if you don't do any CAD yourself, there's still a vast library of things you can print without opening fusion 360 or a hacked copy of SOLIDWORKS.
I think there's a distinction between printing existing 40K/other commercial wargame pieces, vs custom pieces for RPGs, scenery and so forth. My in-person D&D games had lots of custom items (including minis of our characters) which were 3D printed, and resin was only used for detailed prints, with FDM used to provide much of the underlying structure.
I only played with resin printers briefly, and not only do they produce extremely brittle and off-dimenension parts, they are extremely messy and use chemicals that you really should think twice or three times or four times about having under the same roof as the one you sleep in.
With how useful FDM is to me, it seems really strange that resin printing's killer app has been "miniatures", like it's the niche it fell into after everyone bought one and discovered they aren't great for much else. I am in disbelief that people would willingly deal with resin printers just to do miniatures, like there's no way it could possibly be worth it even if you really like that hobby. It feels wrong even to refer to both under the same umbrella of 3D printing.
That said, if you're not regularly designing parts you need made and/or aren't a CAD user, I don't see much use in the average person having a 3D printer (I have 5 btw)