Most practical uses for 3D printing parts are still inferior to CNC milling or wood carving. Rapid prototyping remains the most useful task for 3D printers.

A hammer is better at putting nails into wood than a screwdriver is.

Hobby CNC mills like the Xcarve or the shapeoko only have a 3"~ Z axis. That's on top of the normal limits of carving out of a solid block of material vs printing from nothing.

I don't disagree though. Much of what people demonstrate with a 3d printer would have come out better with a hobby CNC mill.

for the range of 100 parts 3D printing is still more viable for many cases than injection molding. mold alone will cost on average $5k in China.

Also, not everything can be injection molded.

There is certainly a place for 3D printed products (I know, since I am selling some)

Very true; I just made that number up :) But I guess my original point was that it will almost never be cheaper for a consumer to 3D print something than it will be to buy the mass-produced version of that same thing. Unless that thing is covered by an IP license (i.e. a Mario statue or something) in which case there probably is or will be some law against it that just isn't realistic to enforce against individuals.

Just curious: What are you selling?

some odd things, which are not worth mass production:

* http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QPA3K92 * http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TTCHHJ2 * http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RYFM3R2

I have few more ideas in a pipeline. It is not bringing much money, but it does pay for my hobby.

EDIT: I am also open source all of the stuff i am selling (under non-commercial license for obvious reasons) - https://github.com/hippich/stl