alt Hacker NewsI think I'd largely disagree with your recommendation, unless they specifically wanted to get into 3D printing (the hobby) rather than 3D Printing (the tool). I got my printer wanting to make things, and didn't enjoy the tinkering with my mk3 at all. It was a great printer for the time! But I swapped to a P2S and never looked back. I hear Prusa is competitive these days, though not perhaps in price at the low end.
I print a couple of tons every year and I would not be able to do that without the knowledge required to operate a farm reliably and productively. Yes, they're tools, but like all tools it helps to know what you're doing. If I hand you a machining center you won't be able to learn much without a lot of breakage and expense. If you get a lathe to learn and play with, to build up an intuition for feeds & speeds and how materials handle and chip then you will be able to use that machining center to the maximum of its abilities.
Tools require knowledge. 3D printers are no different in that respect and to toss $100 on a printer just to learn is money very well spent. And those old Prusa's excel at precision work, we can do stuff on those that we can not touch with any of the others.