What does your badge do? I'd love to see it!

Mostly cost for us. JLCPCB's scale lets them make money on orders that would be too small for most fabs. Quoting, ordering, and part selection are all a battle tested web form. They also stock most of the parts in-house, so a small order costs them almost no engineering time. A local fab probably wouldn't have any of these advantages. JLCPCB really have it down to a science.

They’re going to be much more expensive than JLCPCB, if they take the job at all.

Some conferences can find small businesses trying to get started who do the jobs at cost or a loss, but that’s rare.

My best guess is an experienced designer would have made fewer mistakes and been more familiar with the process, so maybe they save two iterations and can get the initial schematic capture and layout done in a few days rather than a week.