What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like | Hacker News Reader

What the Maker Revolution Will Really Look Like

blog.zanoby.com

45 pointsKenjiCrosland43 comments

If you really want to know what the maker revolution will look like, visit https://tindie.com, the site I started. Tindie is the marketplace for the 'makers' the author references. We have robots, custom chips, amps, synths - all at the highest quality made by single makers.

The author is missing is actual knowledge of how the manufacturing process works for maker products. Because of that, he or she is left making an assumption that the majority of products will be poor quality - when Tindie actually proves the opposite. The majority of our products are at the highest quality, and that is because of the accessibility of modern manufacturing.

That is why the maker revolution is powerful. One maker can make a product, design it, manufacture it, and sell it all from their garage.

Call me pessimistic, but I suspect that the 'Maker Revolution' could bring us a level of legal madness that is far beyond what we have seen in copyright over the past 20 years.

Plans for 3D printing are not only copyrightable, they are subject to patent law. That, and the potential for creation of contraband with 3D printers may lead to online clearing houses for designs that you make and print at home, or strict legislation controlling the use of home printers and sale of items from them.

Beyond that, it is likely that there will be a secondary effect. Right now, you can make just about any item you want to in your wood shop, hobby shop or on your kitchen table, and use it at home or sell it to neighbors or friends. 3D printers may bring much more legal scrutiny to things that pass under the radar as craft today even if printers aren't used.

I want a better future than that, so I hope that people take the initiative to support early safe harbor legislation and exemptions for home projects.

I wouldn't call you pessimistic - more realistic.

I expect that the reaction of the Manufacturing industry's reaction to small-scale Makers will parallel the Recording/Movie industry to file-sharing, as the situations are similar in many regards.

It's very likely to happen, and it'll suck, but like you said, hopefully we get legislation through in time to protect some of the small Makers so they don't get sued into oblivion by the future-RIAA.

The author missed the true significance of the Maker Revolution. It is not about people being able to design their own products or having a market full of craptastic products.

The Maker Revolution is about being able to provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain. It's about the kind of material freedom you might have if your neighborhood hardware store, or even your household fab in the garage can make all the goods for your basic needs, and then some.

>>provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain.

Hmm... reminds me of a discussion (@Stross' blog) about how many people were needed in a society, to support a technological civilization. Stross argued we would need many millions of people.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/07/insuffic...

(Of course, lots of specialised services can be replaced with less efficient generic ones, but even a minimum of one million people have severe implications for a Mars colony.)

Edit: Clarity

Basic material needs:

Food. Water. Shelter. Air.

Existential needs:

Love, affection, contentment, happiness, connection.

Technology can address the basic needs and can never address existential needs.

Everything else are wants. Wants are endless since they attempt to address existential needs but never actually satisfy them. In that sense, Stross is correct. There will always be more wants than can be supported by any given population size of society; but needs can be supported.

Uhh... you went of in some weird orthogonal direction. The Stross reference were about the minimum number of people needed for a technological civilization.

(Didn't you read it? Are you defending some belief system as an excuse for being religious? We're just talking past each others?)

(And you're wrong, anyway. without technology and science, we'd still have little time, get sick and die early -- living under tyranny. Not much chance of contentment and happiness when you e.g. see your kids die; it was ~ 30% child mortality before technology/science, depending on where you lived. The point is, industrialisation is a prereq for fulfilling existential needs for most of the population.)

Yeah. I read it. Given the constraint, premise, and assumptions, what Stross says makes sense. It's model that's limited in scope.

I'm not being religious. Satisfaction and contentedness is something you can go verify for yourself by observing yourself.

It is entirely possible for an individual to fulfill existential needs even with the horrors of 30% child mortality rate, but most people can't or don't do that. Technology serves as a great support for this, but it will never actually fulfill those existential needs.

It's my hope that microfab technologies will free up people's time so that they can really look into existential needs.

If you're not young, able, and heterosexual, technology can easily be the difference between isolation and connection.

> Love, affection, contentment, happiness, connection.

Technology has addressed these more than you will ever realize.

As has been said already, technology greatly reduces isolation for anyone who isn't young, healthy, heterosexual, cissexual, and of the majority race in the region they find themselves. The ability to form connections based on mutual interests even when geography is against you is easily the difference between living and dying alone and finding a place where you actually fit.

What's more, the ability to make connections anonymously is essential. Being of the wrong persuasion, whatever that persuasion is, in the wrong environment can be grounds for anything from social ostracism to death. Without the technology to anonymously make connections with others, there are people who would risk death just looking for someone they'd enjoy spending time with.

The only people who think technology can't help with what you call 'existential needs' are the people who are lucky enough to not already know what I just posted. And they are amazingly lucky indeed.

Technology will get you only so far. Really connecting with someone is between you and that person, even if mediated by technology.

Companionship, social relations are not the same as love and affection, though they are related. Love isn't really about mutual interests, though mutual interests can mediate that. Mutual interests make it easier for people to understand and be empathetic with each other, but it is well within human possibility to be empathetic with one another without mutual interests.

I make a big deal of this because, while technology made it easier to connect with other people, I want to make clear that technology is not a replacement for connecting with other people.

The discussion focussed on the entire technological stack; and I do not think that anybody claims that we will be designing and printing comercial airliners from scratch at home. By contrast the maker revolution is (in its first stages) about the long tail of manufactoring. So in the forseeable future it is about beeing able to sell small runs of specialized goods at prices compareable to more generic and mass produced competition. While we still need several million people to produce the arduinos that power them.

The discussion noted all the specialities needed in education. The point I was trying to make is that a maker revolution has a potential to drastically cut down the number of specialized people needed; consider just e.g. logistics. (Not talking about the first stages.)

Great point. This could be one of the non obvious social consequences of rapid manufacturing. At least if I think of the IT revolution, then in some sense system programmers replaced a lot different specialties, like delivery boys ( by email), accountants ( at least the half that was double checking the books fifty years ago) and type setters. And in a addition people with domain specific knowledge were enabled to use this knowledge efficiently with computers.

With all respect, I think your's is the "maker idealist" position on this movement. There are many reasons why economies of scale (which are due to physics / engineering problems) will continue to exist in manufacturing - even if many methods are democratized and available locally (a la TechShop today).

I've written on this recently: http://www.nickpinkston.com/2013/01/some-thoughts-on-digital...

Interesting. I'll take a look at that.

Ok. I'm not expecting distributed manufacturing to come over night or even in the near term. I'm aware that it requires crossing over a threshold before that happens.

However, I think it is worth developing these technologies with that in mind. The landscape may change faster than we think.

So I don't think it is "idealist" in the sense that, "well, in the real world, this just isn't practical or possible."

Yea, I think you're right on landscape changing fast. There are definitely bottlenecks that could be opened if the right discoveries were made in material science, etc.

This is an interesting possible future. If all things are built from the same raw substance the supplier of that substance will be incredible wealthy and powerful. A new Carnegie in a global economy.

The next lower level of wealth will be the digital rights owners of commodity items. The rights owner of 'Shovel' will start a dynasty that will last for hundreds of years. They could potentially be powerful enough to extend copyright laws forever so that they continue to collect rent on the shovel.

Exactly. So what we are thrashing out with digital rights right now sets up for the kind of future when physical goods are more about the design licenses and rights to manufacture.

Thinking in those terms, we cannot actually discount the role that digital rights management plays. What makes DRM unfair and oppressive has a bit to do with who holds enforcement powers. If the seller also manages the DRM servers, then it holds all the power and can do whatever it wants. If the seller disappears, your access disappears.

One interesting around that is having a third-party rights management. Something like using Bitcoin contracts: http://codinginmysleep.com/exotic-transaction-types-with-bit...

In their example, you would have bitcoin signed three way: a seller, a buyer, and a mutually-agreed-upon arbitrator. Two sides of a party can complete the transaction. If both seller and buyer agrees, then the bitcoin's ownership transfers over. If there is a disagreement, they can talk to the arbitrator.

The article also talks about other examples, for example, using technology like Bitcoin to sign a loan agreement on a car with the car as a collateral. As long as the owner is making payments for the length of the loan, the car is accessible. When the payments are in arrears, the car is not repossessed; it is locked out remotely. It will be unlocked automatically by digital contract when payment resumes. It also means you can digitally sign over the contract to someone else -- effectively, selling to someone else the rights to use the car if they can get the payments back up and running again.

Something like that would work with digital goods. I can say, hold a contract specified in a Bitcoin-like token to a book. I have the right to loan it out the book to any number of people, but I can only loan it out once. If I loan it, I register via the same p2p mechanism that such a person has the right to read it. When I want it back, I can get the book back, or have the access rights automatically expire.

It doesn't keep pirates from it. If you can read the book, you have access to the raw data, and you can pirate it. Like any social agreements, it depends on that most people will abide by this. It's an iteration on the kind of strong property laws that allows entrepreneurialism to flourish in America.

I can have something similar in a world of powerful microfabs. I purchase manufacturing rights of a design, and it is registered publicly via a p2p mechanism that is not controlled by any private interest. If I purchased the right to manufacturing 100 units, I can split it off and sell or transfer 50 manufacturing rights to someone else. If I wanted to make derivative work, I'd get a separate derivative works license, also registered via a p2p contract system.

Further, I would essentially be paying the designer the perceived value of the good, while decoupling that with the material cost to manufacture such a good. I can choose to purchase additional raw material to feed into the microfab, or I can choose to recycle something I want to get rid of, break it down into its component parts, and make this new thing that I want.

And if I didn't want to pay the perceived value, I find or develop an Open Source version.

Your comments about "A new Carnegie in a global economy" -- that is the premise for Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age. Personally, I think it is far more interesting not to control and be the sole supplier of the raw substance. Why do you want to control it? To be wealthy and powerful. Why do you want to be wealthy and powerful? That gets into some really interesting discussions.

Is this really true though? To get raw materials to use a maker to build something you'll probably have to depend on global supply chains, esp. since most goods will require multiple kinds of material to complete.

> The Maker Revolution is about being able to provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain.

> It's about the kind of material freedom you might have if your neighborhood hardware store, or even your household fab in the garage can make all the goods for your basic needs, and then some.

This is definitely the case, as most of what maker robots are creating now fit this category. With good enough tech, hardware stores, Wal-Mart, and other sellers of mass produced, low complexity items will go out of business, or at least be more much niche then they are now.

I think we're likely to have a long transitional period that still requires a large global supply chain ... but yes, it would be neat to see maker robots locally at say, Walmart or hardware stores.

Yes, real products, from haute couture handbags...

I don't think they know what haute couture means. The maker bot is about localized mass production, not something made specifically for one person. And clothing has always been a maker activity - you can go buy a sewing machine (and pretty advanced ones at that) right this second.

The Maker Revolution improves our capability to make small-run and custom products, that's what's so great about it.

However, it's far from any kind of industrial revolution. It's also important to point out that rapid prototyping has been a standard tool in most manufacturing disciplines for at least the 20 years I've been an engineer.

Another encouraging side-effect of the Maker discussion is that the new consensus about the advantages of local manufacturing. We've been complaining to our bosses about the loss of manufacturing capability not only because our jobs are going overseas but also because the local knowledge about design-for-manufacturability and the other DFx's are eroding.

When I started my current job we had assembly lines, machine shops, reliability and regulatory labs and a large force of highly skilled technicians. Now it's almost all engineers and the most we can hope for is to build the first 10 prototypes of anything we design.

The "Maker" induced renewed interest in rapid prototyping has caused a subtle shift in the minds of mid and upper management about how far to take local manufacturing before going to CMs in China.

I think this article misses not only "the" point but pretty much all points about the "maker" revolution. The maker revolution is about the world of "atoms" being converged into the world of "bits". Just as desktop publishing technology engulfed specialized information-centric industries such as mathematical and musical typesetting, 3d printers are the first step towards what Neal Stephenson referred to as "matter compilers" in The Diamond Age -- where the gap between design and physicality is almost trivial -- the idea that this will look like guilds or mass cottage industry or whatever is wrong-headed: it will look like something we've never seen before.

(I think matter compilers are going to far, and we'll probably use standardized recyclable lego-like pieces rather than atoms but the idea is basically sound).

3d printers are the first step towards ... where the gap between design and physicality is almost trivial

Maybe the author is thinking of the next few years and you're thinking about the next few decades.

Perhaps. I don't think that we'll return to the guild system in the next few years either :-)

I don't understand why we keep us in the word "democratize" when it comes to increasing individual freedom with technology. Democracy is the tyranny of the majority; we aren't voting to see who gets to produce or consume what. It's a pet peeve of mine because it's simply used as a buzzword and makes no sense in a technological context.

I think it gets used that way because it has been for at least decades now. Democratization of information, knowledge has long been tied to the idea of decentralization and distribution amongst the masses. This easily carries over to many of the principal ideas of the internet and the communication of ideas, designs, etc that it permits.

Democratise means to make accessible to all the people, like how democracy gives the vote to all the people.

You know what's sad? I got genuinely excited because I thought this thread title said "Marker Revolution."

To be fair, look... I'm left-handed. I'd be pretty excited about a new kind of smear-proof marker that didn't leave my hand and the drawing surface looking like unintentional abstract art if I wasn't careful.

Write right to left :-) I too am left handed and if you don't mind annoying people it does solve the problem (well at least as much as it does for right handed people). The weird thing is that when you first write stuff that way its all weird and uncomfortable and then if you force it your brain will flip the switch and you'll write as fast as you ever have. Once you get there its especially fun signing things, that freaks people out.

Of course middle eastern folks have done this forever so its not a 'new' thing in any sense of the word.

Ah, we shared the same reading comprehension issue. Aside from the whiteboard or other fixed-surface situation, you can always just angle the paper. Writing with the paper angled about 60 degrees anticlockwise seems to do the trick.

Fountain pens are another problem area. You have to learn to write without "pushing" the pen. More info here: http://www.nibs.com/Left-hand%20writers.htm --combine that with fast-drying ink and things aren't so bad.

This tacit knowledge is the reason why we don’t have a 3D model of a Stradivarius violin, or even a real-life exact replica of any kind, for that matter.

It may be no Stradivarius, but it's a start on 3D printing musical instruments: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-11/the-worlds-f...

That whole thing about the 3d model of a Stradivarius is complete nonsense:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15926864 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2067981/Resea...

So we do have 3d models of Stradivarius violins, plus computer cut replicas. And on top of that, in blind tests, violinists preferred modern violins anyway.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jan/02/how-many-notes-v...

I think it'll look like this:

http://www.assaultweb.net/Forums/showthread.php?t=142405

"AR-15 30rd Magazine Dowloadable CAD Files"

Edit: Maybe I've been reading too much Charles Stross:

"Mind you, not everything that comes out of a rapid prototyper is good. Here's the Magpul FMG-9 prototype: and here's some more. Is it a flashlight? Is it a submachine gun? Who knows? Here's another baroque weapon that probably started life on a rapid prototyping machine. If reprap-like machines with strong materials turn out to be cheap and easy, then never mind licensing handguns — we're going to have a problem with home-made crew-served weapons. (Reminder: yr. hmbl. crspndnt. lives in a country where, for better or worse, possession of a pistol by anyone who's not in the police or military carries a mandatory 5-year minimum prison sentence. The implications of rapid prototyping machines for this sort of legislative environment probably parallel the effects of peer to peer networking on music industry cartels.)"

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2008/06/the_futu...

Guns, really? My first thought was replacement parts...

Downvoted, why does everyone need to bring up the gun issue when somebody talks about the maker revolution? Big gun manufactures have been making guns for a long time. I don't see how people making themselves matters at all.

The point is the difficulty of enforcing gun control legislation, when a banned 30 round clip can be simply printed in anyone's garage from a easily transferred file. Not entirely germane to the present discussion I think, but not entirely irrelevant either.

Did you perhaps miss this: "Obama told lawmakers that he wanted them to swiftly pass a assault-weapon ban and limit magazines to 10 bullets."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2013/01/16/what-obama...

"If reprap-like machines with strong materials turn out to be cheap and easy, then never mind licensing handguns — we're going to have a problem with home-made crew-served weapons." - Charles Stross

The drivers of new technology aren't always wholesome.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PornDrivesNewTech

Called it. Front page HN today:

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/ny-congressman-i...

Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people.

This being HN I'll probably get stoned for this reddit-like comment. So be it.

Well that didn't take long. -1 downvote per 8 minutes.

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