Definitions are fluid these days. When I don't want to make multiple cheap prints or can't print a larger size art print I use the best service I can for the time and budget.
I have no problem running off a batch of a hundred dance recital or family birthday snapshots at the local drug store, Walmart, or online/mail service like Shutterfly. I think the quality of these inexpensive prints is far better than it was even 10 years ago and you can't beat the price and speed.
If I need to make a 30 x 40 I'll use a place like
booksmartstudio.com and print on my choice of papers. I can pay for a small proof print before committing to the final print, and since I am a fussbudget, sometimes I will make more prints to get things the way I want it (and charge accordingly). But because we have better color profiling and properly adjust the curves and color of the files, most prints come out very nicely the first time.
But I have a framed 24x36 Walmart print of my daughter and her friends hanging in her room and it cost $12 and I can't find anything to complain about. It looks just as good as the $200 Gliceeeeeee print except the media is thinner and plastic. It may fade in 20 years (but I doubt it will very much).
Having a printer or darkroom of your own is a great way to learn but beware of the trap that occurs once you achieve a basic competency. It is very easy to get lost in the woods so to speak, and wind up making dozens of variations and noticing small things that could be improved at each step of the way... when you are myopically focused on making the next perfect fine print it is easy to spend hours and $$$ trying to print the shadow at the base of a cloud an inch wide "just right".
Nobody will notice.
I have thrown away boxes of prints made like that, and a few weeks or years later I can't even tell what detail I was chasing.
Bonafides are I have been printing digitally since the first Iris printer with Jon Cone, I also was a professional darkroom worker and had the whole Zone system process nailed as well as doing commercial production work. When it's on the clock for reproduction you have to get faster and be decisive, that's a hard skill to replicate when it's a hobby or you're an "artist".
And to be brutal, the screen of my iMac 5K is the very best image viewing medium ever in the history of the world. Even the finest prints are only muddy representations. Once large OLED displays settle down I'll hang several through out the house with high rez images displayed with the calibration changing to correlate to the changing light temperature and environment. I have thousands of nice prints mildewing in archival boxes that my kids are going to trash unless I hurry the F up and get famous.
/rant thanks good luck