I think you just answered your own question there. Look up the price of a 3-axis mill with the capabilities you're looking for. The cheapest you'll find is pr

I think you just answered your own question there. Look up the price of a 3-axis mill with the capabilities you're looking for. The cheapest you'll find is probably the Tormach 440, which starts at about $7K. A laser cutter in the range you're likely looking for runs about the same. Now look at the unit economics on that and figure out how many people like you would need to pay to use the machines before breaking even, before even getting into rent, maintenance costs, insurance, and the inevitable repairs needed when a non-professional uses it and breaks it. It's just not worth it to have that level of machinery available to the public unless it's part of a bigger TechShop-like setup where dues are a grand a year and classes that much again (there's a similar place to TechShop in Orange County, for example, with an almost identical cost structure). For what it's worth, I run a 3D printing shop (we also have a laser cutter and woodworking equipment) and we let people prototype on our machines occasionally. 3D printing is an order of magnitude more accessible than milling, and probably about twice as easy as laser cutting, and if one of our machines goes down due to user error, it's cheap and easy to replace parts and won't stop operations since there are plenty of others.