This is how I felt about 3d printing and always got shit on for saying it. I can carve or sculpt something for hours and a 3d printed item makes someone go “I made this” well I mean your printer did
Digital art is still art and effort and talent. You also need to have some technical expertise to know how to use as well as tune and maintain a 3D printer. 3d modeling is not a “snap your fingers and it’s there” kind of thing.
I think they may be referring to the kind of people that just lazily pull someone else’s 3d rendering from somewhere online, run it through a printer, and go around showing off what “they” made.
There’s definitely plenty of those types around…
I might agree with you if I hadn’t heard ten thousand bad takes over the years about how digital art isn’t art or how photographs aren’t art or how video games aren’t art. If their take was that printing pre-made files isn’t art, then they should have said that.