I would think it would depend on the type, quantity, and size of photos you're printing. Sure, I can spend oodles of money on a big, spendy photo printer, but then you have the additional costs of the paper + the ink (which also isn't cheap) - or I can hop online, upload my photos somewhere, and be done with it in a few minutes to pick them up later, to the tune of about $10-$20.
That said, to do it yourself, you don't have the "upload size" limitations (Seriously, most of my original JPG images are 5MB+), and you don't necessarily have the "odd crop" issue that you would have trying to do it online (case in point: I tried to get a print of
this alligator, but he fills the frame in such a way that I'd have to lop off either his tail or his nose (neither of which were acceptable to me; and moot point, because it's really not that great of a photo when you blow it up large anyway)).
I think for as much as I print, and what I'm getting out of it right now, I'm going to have to go "professional printer." I just don't do enough prints to justify the cost of a photo printer.
Of course, the printer my best friend wants is the uber-high end Epson (I think), to get poster-sized prints. He kept trying to convince me that I didn't need a new camera because he didn't have a good photo printer yet
