The exception is if you print photos. There’s not really a good alternative to inkjet, except RA-4, which is out of reach for consumers.
I think the disconnect here may be that most people rarely print glossy, so stopping by a store isn't a big deal for the vast majority.
If you're really printing glossy on short order demand then of course owning the machine might make sense.
People have legitimate reasons to want their own high quality color printers, even if that is its own pain, too.
Give us another couple thousand years or so.
For another thing, being able to print proofs in your own office is important. Having to run to the drug store to check color output is an awful pain.
Lastly, professional photo printers are often larger than what a drug store has, or at least higher quality at that large size.
I mean, you can see the photos, and they’re clear enough, it's just nowhere near the quality that you can get for the same price.
I’ve done extensive price comparisons based the cost of paper and ink. For different brands and models of printer, I’ve done comparisons of the number of pictures you have to print to break even, compared to the cost of taking it to a shop and having them print it for you. I included discount online printers as well.
These comparisons include the cost of paying for all consumables—usually ink, but some printer models have additional consumables which you have to include. These comparisons also factor in the difference between the included inks and the ink refills (some printers ship with ink cartridges that are less full than the refills).
It is not hard to come out ahead, doing your own prints. When I was doing this comparison, it was only economical to go to the store if you were sporadically printing the smallest picture sizes. For a medium picture size like 8"x10", you could be using high-quality paper and inks at home and still spend less money than bargain online print services.
As a rough estimate, printing yourself with high-quality inks and papers can come out to around $0.02 per square inch, or $1.60 for an 8"x10" photo. Right now, an 8x10 is $3.56 on Shutterfly, or $2.99 on Snapfish. That’s a pretty stark difference.
So you save about $1.40 per photo, and you can use this to calculate how long it takes to amortize the cost of the printer hardware. For a $250 printer, like a reasonable low-end Epson or Canon photo printer, that’s just 180 prints.
YMMV. I expect most people don’t print photos at all these days, and only put photos on their phone. I personally don’t see the point in printing out 3.5"x5" photos if I own a tablet or phone with a screen that large. So, my expectation is that people who print photos are making albums of family photos, or perhaps they’re amateur photographers or digital artists. Someone with a passing interest in photography or making photo albums, who prints, can easily blow through 180 prints to break even on a printer purchase. If you just have a few picture frames around the house you want to fill, obviously just go to a shop.
When I purchased my printer, I was comparing against more expensive local photo labs, rather than the cheapest online services. I was also comparing 11"x14" prints, which typically cost around $10 each, versus $3 at home. The purchase of a $700 printer is amortized after only 100 such prints, in this scenario.
I print photos all the time. My mom doesn't want to look at a computer just to see a photo. I don't want to give my photos to a third party.
You might get refill for 100 photos for like $40, maybe a bit less. Then you pay for the paper. Limited size options. Looks great, though. Drugstore prices are around $0.25 and local labs are around $0.40, which are more economical options.
I’ve only ever used dye sub for photos that needed immediate turnaround.
How often do you print photos that you can't?
It's somebody else who owns much hiqher quality printers that you would buy, and who charges everybody for a markup (so it gets spread).
It's usually cheaper to print in such a service than to buy printer+ink+paper and print - and with better results.
This is just completely untrue. What kind of machines do you think they have back there?
Photo labs typically have two types of machines: something like a Noritsu which prints onto standard RA-4 paper with lasers, and ordinary inkjet printers, like the ones from Epson or Canon (like what I’ve purchased for myself—I’ve occasionally seen the same exact model behind the counter at photo labs—the same printer I have at home).
The advantage of the Noritsu style machines is that you can churn out hundreds of 4"x6" photos per hour. It’s not higher-quality than inkjet… actually, inkjet prints are better, and you can do that at home. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense—the Noritsu is constrained by RA-4 chemistry, but the Epson / Canon ink can be anything that you can squirt out an inkjet head.
You can calculate the break even point for inkjet printers. If you’re printing, say, 8x10s, then break-even is somewhere around 200 prints, over the lifetime of the printer, compared to using the cheapest discount services online. This is if you decide to get a photo inkjet printer (around $300), account for the cost of ink ($0.01 per square inch) and high-quality paper (also around $0.01 per square inch) and compare it against online services (around $3 for the cheapest 8x10s).
If you aren’t printing many photos or are sticking to the super-cheap 4"x6" size, go ahead and take your photos to the lab. But the photo lab ain’t magic—it’s mostly just equipment that you could reasonably buy for your home.