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Comment by in_absentia | Hacker News Reader

> I do not know what you are talking about.

What are you talking about? Show me one survey that shows DIY crafts as a whole becoming more popular in the past several decades. It's just not a thing. People increasingly don't have room for it, computers and cell phones have won as a way to spend the bulk of our free time, and even if you want to create, the primary outlet is the digital world.

> 3D printing at home is more popular than ever

Sure, but that's a given because the technology didn't exist until very recently. I can also say that Tesla Cybertruck is more popular than ever, but that doesn't mean much, right.

> Even families I know who don’t have a computer at home, only their phones, now have 3D printers and use them.

A vanishingly tiny proportion of families in the US or in the EU own 3D printers and use them.

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A vanishing small number of people ever did those things. Many people owned tablesaws but they rarely used them to make something for fun. They owned the dream and subscribed to the magazines but they only rarely made anything.

Yeah, unfortunately you are correct. Life's too busy nowadays and there's not enough time to do a quarter of the things one wishes especially projects that require planning and months to implement.

Moreover, the reduction in or loss of manual trades (woodworking, machining, toolmaking, etc.) whether at home or in industry, amounts to an overall deskilling of the citizenry which has strategic implications.

Not nowadays, it always was like that. Nothing is different today.

I don't see how that holds. Detroit and other cities it we're once filled with skilled machinists, pattern makers, carpenters, pipefitters, etc. Now they're not. None of this has anything to do with what those people did for fun in their spare time (and you're right: that was rarely "the same thing I do at work but in my garage"). We are certainly deskilled in these areas compared to times in decades past.

Sherline made tools for hobbyist. While they were high quality such that a professional could use them, professionals typically would buy larger more expensive machines (which can still to the small jobs when that is they got, but could also take on larger work the Sherline couldn't handle).

The the hobbyist in the garage needs to be the topic here, not professionals. The hobbyist enjoying things in the garage still exists, but is still rare. Those that do the work are skilled. If you want to join them there are plenty of books on the subject, it just takes some practice to develop the skills.

Industry is of course deskilled.

> What are you talking about? Show me one survey that shows DIY crafts as a whole becoming more popular in the past several decades.

Entry level 3D printer sales (the kind you buy from Prusa or Bambu Labs) have been surging for years.

You could Google this and find a thousand articles about it. The entry-level segment has grown massively and continues to expand https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/context-industrial-growt...

> Sure, but that's a given because the technology didn't exist until very recently.

I built my first 3D printer over 10 years ago. The latest printer I bought is much more refined, but it's still stepper motors, belts, a gear driven extruder, and a nozzle like my original printer. The technology has been around for a long time. The popularity explosion is recent.

> A vanishingly tiny proportion of families in the US or in the EU own 3D printers and use them.

We're talking about hobbies and that's how hobbies work, yes.

The hobby is growing significantly, though. Arguing that most households don't have a 3D printer is just a strawman.

I know exactly one person who has a 3D printer. I would argue strongly that “most households” do not in fact have a 3D printer.

"Most households", no, but a statistically significant number? Yes.

Two of my co-workers have one each, and another is planning on buying one for her kids for Christmas --- DJI revenge-investing in Elegoo to spite the folks who left their company to start Bambu Labs pretty much knocked the bottom out of the market and halved (again) the price with the Centauri Carbon, resulting in a glut of ~$300 CoreXY printers, many of which are enclosed and hence have a higher perceived value.

Most estimates are that 2024 had ~4.5 million shipped, and 2025 looked to be even more, and no signs of the upward trajectory decreasing for 2026. For one small snapshot see the recent Snapmaker campaign for the U1, >$20M raised from >20K backers. With most sales to the U.S., for ~135M households, while not at 10%, it is almost certainly past 5%, so approximately 1-in-20 households.

> You could Google this and find a thousand articles about it.

Such articles are frequently by the people who would benefit the most from them and usually lack specifics. My favorite version of this is to do a web search for "fastest growing hobby in the world". Lots of hobbies are the fastest growing hobby in the world, it turns out.

And from that you conclude what?

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