Plus, if they're doing it as a hobby, or in their spare time, it makes sense to get it commercially done.
No, it doesn't, and I'll explain why. This question pops up from time to time, and I'm surprised how hostile some anti-digital people can be, but given I've set up commercial lines I feel qualified to to debunk it. You should be given course credit for reading this
Conventional B&W films were at their peak about the early 90's when there was a revival in the B&W aethestic. This was also before film scanners were really hitting the mainstream, so commercial shooters couldn't just shoot color slide films and desaturate (cheat). If you wanted B&W film 'look', you had to shoot B&W film (or rely on a really good pre-press guy).
At this this chemical film processing was pretty much at it's apex in terms of technology. Digital was still a concept, so all of Fuji and Kodak's R&D went into film/paper technology.
Even so, conventional B&W processing 'sucked' to high heaven because there really is
no standard when it comes to processing B&W film. E-6 and C-41 however are fixed standards. Commercial labs wants to use cheap, bulk chemicals with uber_replenishment and want to use a machine to process film. Read any fine art book on film processing and you'll be properly lectured that the
*only* way to properly process B&W film is by hand with a good developer like D-76 or HC-110. D-76 being awesome for Tri-X while HC-110 is astounding for ILford films.
Commercial labs use sucky, high volume systems to process B&W film, and that was 15years ago. God knows what they're using now, but I doubt it's some guy in the back using helical hand rotation with a stainless tanks and intermittent agitation cycles to maximize shadow detail.
So in short, there is
no option with conventional B&W film. If you shoot it, process it yourself. The film lines I set up were a custom hybrid I designed using a mix of machine and vertical hand rotation. Our printer did everything by hand and would hand tweak every print with dichro enlarger to get the best contrast. Side bar, but IMHO condensor enlargers and contrast filters should have been banned the second the color dichro enlarger was invented because the later is 1000x superior for printing B&W. Anyways, Kodak regional reps loved it and were constantly stopping by our labs and getting ideas. Then digital hit - lab closed.
To be blunt, I've never quite bought into the 'B&W aethestic myth' because it's takes forever to get good enough with conventional B&W films and paper to really start making prints with enough rich graduation to be satisfying. It's also really tough with 35mm because your average dSLR will smoke 35mm B&W once you learn how to desaturate and tweak curves properly.
However, if you have a knack for it, use good papers and have a good eye for tone and are patient you can make pretty darn good prints on fiber based papers that are tough to replicate with digital printers.
Other advice is to stick with classic films like HP5, Tri-X (with reservations) and use Ilford FP4 over Plus-X or Tmax. The reason is that Kodak has castrated their remaining B&W films to lower production costs and hence they all have the sterile 'Tmax' look to them. Ilford HP5 and FP4 have remained pretty much unchanged over the years, and most people want to shoot B&W film because they want a classic look.
Actually, now that I think about it, FP4 pulled a stop to EI 50 (reduce processing by 1/3 the time) would be your best option. Tmax 100 has better grain, but it lacks the depth of FP4. You can always get your film mail order from B&H - good people to buy film from.