I don't know that I'd argue that "consumer" 3D printing, as in a printer at home that just churns out a part when you want it, is even really hear yet, certainly not in the way that a dishwasher or lawnmower is. You need to do your own slicing, thinking through supports and brims and layer height, and the printers themselves need no small amount of troubleshooting that is much more than "turn it on and off again". So, I'd argue it's still a hobbyist realm than a consumer one.
I do, I've never printed one of those boats, but not everyone's interested.
If you think of it as functional/decorative categorisation first of all, obviously some people will overlap but broadly speaking I think people are interested for one or the other, then within the 'decorative' camp you can go a hell of a lot further without and I think it's more obviously reasonable to not care about designing your own models. You never wanted to design your own toys, but there's appeal in printing things not available on Amazon, unofficial merch for a film you like, or whatever.
Not to say there isn't functional stuff (which I exclusively print) on these sites, but often it won't be quite what I want, so yeah I end up in Fusion. (And typically starting from scratch eventually, because for some reason people don't share source, and working with imported STLs is hellish.)
Resin printers are HUGELY popular for people that paint miniatures and do tabletop stuff. Most of them never design characters and just buy the cad models to print.
There are several "CAD lite" systems available if you don't actually need dimensional accuracy though. There's a model boom in DnD circles around sharing 3D models, slicing them up, gluing them together, and making your own designs by basically digital kitbashing.
My friend is filling up hard drives with 3D models DMs share.
Bro maybe 3-5 years ago.
I pulled my Ender 3v3 out of the box and hit print and it's been running almost constantly for a month. I don't even know what 'bed leveling' is, because it self levels, whatever that means.
I also found my printer (Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro) to be flawless for about a month until it started needing more conscious levelling and bed cleaning between prints, started getting fussier about temperatures (ended up replacing a possibly faulty thermistor that was making my bed temp fluctuate), and dealing with waterlogged filament and needing to solve that with filament driers etc.
I'm not saying it /can't/ be smooth, but I contrast it to my dishwasher, which I expect to wash dishes, correctly and successfully, about 99/100 dishes (assuming I rinse them well), and then when it starts to decline in 3-5 years, that it's time for a new one. 3D printers are not to that level of reliability yet, nor are their support systems around slicing/supporting/etc.
