There’s no money in 3D printing

As for the actual article, this:

“3D printing will be poised to suck the value out of manufacturing.”

Sounds like a good thing to me. If we make all our own jobs obsolete, then our economic model will have to change so that we don’t starve to death in the ensuing abundance and leisure.

Of course, just because manufacturing and, say, agriculture can be done by automatons doesn’t mean they should be. Even if some can’t fathom it, a lot of people genuinely enjoy getting their hands dirty. Will they be allowed to farm for pleasure when the robots do all the necessary farming?

I see the future of 3d printing as the golden era of the service industry.

I want a semi-portable laptop with a mechanical keyboard and e-ink display. This would be my ideal rugged travel laptop for doing work. I really like how e-ink looks when I write code and I like the clickity-clackity of my mechanical keyboard. But I don't want this to be some hodge-podge mixture of almost-fitting components. It should open and shut like a car door, not a cardboard box.

I also have a strange clothing size, everyone does for that matter. Maybe I'm a 1/4 inch between the sizes. My shoes never fit correctly and my hats are either too tight or too loose.

I also want to design my house in a specific way. Right now my bookshelves end a foot before the wall when I would really like them flush. The same for my couch, coffee table and television.

I also want something to hold all of my daughter's drawings, a nice ornate book with her name engraved on it, maybe I'll even pay someone to take some of her drawings and carve them into the book itself.

How many wants do people have that can be serviced when you are willing to take someone with talent (a 3d designer) and a universal making machine? My dream e-ink laptop is worth $2000 to me, the parts are probably in the ballpark of $250, that leaves a nice profit for the designer. My little book for my daughters drawings would be worth a few hundred.

If all you can do is print out forks the maximum amount of money you can buy is related specifically to the number of forks you can sell. However, if you can build the random things that people want that they cannot find in stores, well you'll have a very sustainable business on your hands.

It's a basic principle of economics that all mature, competitive market segments have 0 profit. I thought this was common knowledge.

The generalized nature of 3D printing is what can/will make it so competitive, as opposed to manufacturing equipment which is very specialized to a specific industry, and therefore much more likely to be monopolized by a single company.

Well, theoretically such a machine could be worth billions but actually you’d probably sell a few to research institutes and then one to a commercial company and then it is game over for you.

sure sounds like

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.

I've got no predictions on the future world wide market for 3D printing, but big predictions on future tech are usually wrong.

Computers like the Rasperry Pi cost now $45 and are more powerful that million dollar IBM machines of the past. The same is going to happen with expensive industrial equipment like laser cutters, 3d printers or metal discharge model making tools as patents expire.

Different quantities, different margins, but a business after all.

I'm skeptical. For example, developing seeds is another industry potentially vulnerable to the "customers could become the producers" dilemma but Monsanto is doing pretty well. Similarly you can use Microsoft products to download, crack and freely reproduce Microsoft products - but they're not doing too bad either. I wouldn't underestimate the combination of legislation, monopolies and/or powerful branding.

All it would take is for your Acme 3D Printer to have its own a Acme 3D Template Store and a large market share.

Another way to look at this is people today spend alot of money on craft tools and materials and we even have dedicated shopping channels for such products.

Finaly I think if you look at the cost of lego brick and the respective volme of 3D ink, then I suspect you will see that 3D ink works out very comparable and cheaper in many area's. People spend a lot of money on Lego and with that alone the market for 3D printers has a place. Not saying rip of Lego bricks but that people like to play and create things and whilst Lego is targeted at children it still endures with many a adult.

Initialy with the costs of a good printer that can use robust 3D ink we will see your local printers embacing the new avenue and many other outlets offering a 3D printing service. The home consumer market will grow, costs will drop but. As I said with the initial introduction of laser printers and other printing types, initial they were expensive, but only got better and cheaper and permuated into more purchsing budgets/needs over using your local print shop.

With markets most people will work out the direction and then end up dooming it all as it does not happen as quickly as they can think about it. Markets are funny slow beasts that operate on various timelines and with new technology the initial market is the niche that opens the crack or not into larger markets. I certainly see a larger market given the ever expanding craft market and with the same insight into how laser printers started and ended up at, let alone coloured printing, which was many years ago the work of a dedicated print shop.

ALso worth remembering that industry today has milling machines and flow-jet which will take a solid block of metal and turn it into your defined shape. 3D printing is not metal and with that is targeting different markets and we are a long way from the univeral replicator perception most seem to think 3D printing is. That is a long way off, heck how long has it taken to get the perfect monitor, close but still not there as a ideal. But they sell and with that the ability for somebody to print out a 3D object be it a chess set, replacement part for some broken plastic bit in a product that you can't replace without purching the entire module/section. Many DIY tasks would have a use for such an item, even customised plastic washers, so many usable area's even with todays technology.

So that is why I disagree with the conclusions as they are based upon a ideal with todays limitations impossed and not taking into account printing technology adoption within markets historicaly, let alone the bleed over markets in craft, DIY and many more others will probably be aware of.

For me the acid test is when you can print out a plate, knife and fork and use them to eat with practicaly and saftly as good as disposable cutterly today. Then we have a robust enough technology that consumers will start to embrace if the price is right. I also expect the 3D-ink's will follow inkjet prices, but the printers will carry a margin until the saturation is at the level which enables a large company to make enough margin on the ink over the printers. It will be when all printers end up offering more or less the same functionality at various price points at comparable levels to other manufacturers.

Anyway, a universal machine maker would likely run of nano technology, and once we reach that level of technology, all bets are off. The game changes and suddenly a lot of businesses are buggy whip manufactures.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathe [2}https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milling_machine

3D printing has created a useful and affordable process for engineers/creatives/etc to mock up products that would've otherwise been very expensive to outsource, especially with the back and forth between vendors to modify designs.

To say that model wont turn a profit is silly. Its a rather old business model...

(landlords, rentacenter, new car leasing, etc..)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies