SupremumLimit is right. 2D and 3D printers are fundamentally different things. The analogies you can draw are pretty shallow. As someone that has a 3D printer, I feel this way, but at this moment, I can't quite put my finger on why, other than the things you print out with a 3D printers can be used to solve your problems, whereas pages printed on a 2D printer is used to transfer or hold information.
I think you just love your 3D printer - which is totally cool, but I actually think the comparison is quite apt.
There's a lot of people who love printing photos, flyers, etc. at the click of the mouse. We shouldn't demean that - there's a lot of real uses for 2D printing.
The own/rent/outsource question is a big part of the future of digital fabrication. See my article in MAKE:
