Im sure some people would prefer a clay sculpture, it seems logical though that if someone has created an artistic form in a 3d program they will probably want it to be exactly the same as what they created, which 3d printing provides pretty cheaply these days…If he was offering this service so he could learn and just charging postage and materials(would still cost alot) it would probably be more appropriate, imagine if I posted my first attempts at 3d modeling and tried to charge money for my services, I would be utterly savaged on the forums and probably rightly so
The great thing is that he gets to see peoples different opinions on the matter and thats only going to make him better informed if he wants to blend and old time art form with a new technically based one