The average hobbyist does not own a 3D printer, and specialization in the hobby (and hobby-adjacent artisanship) is what enables ScatterMaster and Galaad to both have businesses. The small-scale manufacturer fronts the capital for maintaining (probably) a printing farm producing miniatures as fast as orders can come in, and does both the labor required to turn semi-toxic resin into pretty figures and also the entrepreneurial application to (basically) make sure they show up on top of Etsy and Google for searches for “wizard miniature for D&D game maybe a bit old and wizened?” The artist gets to largely outsource per-order customer service questions, fulfillment, owning and operating a printing farm, the complexities of international trade, etc. They can focus on marketing to end-users (and perhaps more importantly to potential manufacturers) and sculpting miniatures which fill the holes in their users' product lineups or tabletops.
From the article: