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Each and every point you make is along the same lines as what originally happened with computers.

Think about it this way; 3d printers will eventually expand. You'll be able to print more and more things. Soon, they'll be useful things. Then, you'll be using a printer to make essentials.

One day, they'll be indispensable, just like computers today.

They won't be the same as what you see now. They'll work with metals, they will mold and polish. They may even do some crazy assembly in addition.

Whatever they will be, we probably can't envision yet.

The alternative to a computer in every home is... well, there really isn't any other way to talk with people around the world. The alternative to a 3d printer in every home is Amazon Prime.

However, 3D printing is nearly instant delivery. With Amazon Prime, as of now, it still takes 1-2 days for packages to arrive.

Imagine if Amazon Prime were to adopt 3D printing into their model...

Clearly written by a guy who hasn't left a Makerbot (sloooooowly) printing something overnight, only to wake up to a room full of PLA fairy floss…

;-)

How will you ever be able to print transistors, capacitors, anything made of metal, or most anything useful? Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of cool uses now for very specific things like robots, prototyping, or medical things, but the idea that one day soon everyone will have a 3d printer and you will purchase schematics for things on Amazon is far fetched. I cant think of a single thing I have purchased on amazon in the last year that could be made on a 3d printer. Unless they will start being able to make things out of steal, glass, rare materials, and be able to vacuum seal things, etc.

How will you ever be able to

This kind of skepticism has been raised about everything, years, decades or centuries before it happens.

The very thing that makes 3D printing an interesting field is that's it's in its infancy and the long-term possibilities are unknown/unknowable.

I'm not making any predictions about what will or won't happen, but I'll be fascinated to see it unfold.

Unless they will start being able to make things out of steal, glass, rare materials, and be able to vacuum seal things

...well yes, exactly.

>"3D printing an interesting field is that's it's in its infancy"

Infancy? We had 3D printers in the 80s along with 1Mhz processors powering home built computer kits. Yet, 30 years later those CPUs are running at 3000Mhz with multiple cores while the printers have barely advanced. The only reason you hear so much talk is the patents on early Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) units have expired. But these $1000 printers are only good for printing cheap plastic junk like this guy printed for his daughter which costs more to print and is worse quality than the stuff you can find at the local $ store.

"it is very possible that ... one machine would suffice to solve all the problems that are demanded of it from the whole country." -- Sir Charles Darwin in 1946 about computers.

Two things might interest you: Optomec's process of printing semiconductors onto 3D structures, and the NovoGen MMX Bioprinter, which prints human tissue.

Still, I agree that fused deposition modeling is not going to be cost effective compared to injection molding if you need more than 2000 objects worldwide.

There were these things, before computers. We called them Telephones I think.

The way that we use computers to communicate is very different from the Plain Old Telephone System. With telephones you could call an individual around the world, but you couldn't have the kind of interactions with lots of people in non-realtime that computers allow.

Yes, and how you obtain things will be different when you can reliably make them at home. Yes, even stupid plastic trinkets (as if it'll really stop there anyways).

The point is, if you pretend a new tech will always be as lame as it is now you'll never see anything coming. And for most of the years computers have been around they did not revolutionize communication. That's a relatively late development.

And for most of the years computers have been around they did not revolutionize communication. That's a relatively late development.

Not even close. Computers have been used as a novel communications tool since at least 1958, and for (de)encryption of traditional communications since 1943.

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Automatic_Ground_Environme... ]

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer ]

Sure, if you limit what you print to what is available on Amazon Prime. That is an incredibly limited imagination in my opinion.

I agree. Who ever said, "Boy I wish I could manufacture that in my house"? Plastic goods are already cheap, so what does this save me? 2 days waiting for my Amazon order?

Revolutions happen when you drastically reduce costs, or increase functionality. 3D printing does neither.

F.Y.I. The next revolution will be in robotics.

Using 3D-printed robotic parts.

I think you could have made the same argument for laser printers. Who ever said, "Boy I wish I could have my printouts look like they came from a professional printer"? Yet, now they cost $400 and many people have them in their homes. And even those that do not have ink jets with output quality almost as good.

Increased functionality: I can have exactly what I want. It can look exactly like it was professionally created.

Decreased costs: It saves the cost of shipping it from China, then driving it on the freeway. This might be worth it for heavier items. If 3D printing can be scaled to a factory level, this might be very attractive, since you wouldn't have to hire expensive American workers to produce in the US. It might make things with high capital cost much more affordable: imagine being able to 3D print out custom car body parts and have them assembled for the price of a high-end car. Impossible now.

I think that's a poor argument. Personal printers are on the way out. I recently got rid of my laser printer. It's large, clunky, I almost never used it (who needs things on paper anyway?). Every time I need something printed (once every two years, maybe) I would much rather go to OfficeWorks and get it done. So much more convenient than plugging the printer in just to use it.

I think 3D printing is a cool niche, but I don't see it becoming a mainstream thing. People simply don't need to have physical objects produced often enough in their homes — there are odd times where it's useful, but they are rare enough that a trip to a store, or online order outweighs the inconvenience of having a large machine dedicated to a single task in your home.

I'm in my early twenties and I have never owned a printer and likely never will. I have always had access to them at libraries, my university (which is when I actually printed a lot of stuff), work, etc. I can't imagine ever needing to get one, let alone spending a large amount of money on a high quality laser printer. Printers just always seem to be around me. Anytime I need to print something I am giving what a printed to someone or mailing it etc. Which means that I am going somewhere. So, on the way there, I just stop somewhere and do my printing there.

Sounds like a lot of people have bought printers for you to use.

Specifically, him (or his parents) through taxes, tuition, fees.

3D printing lets you print something custom quickly and cheaply. You can make a unique thing and hold iterations of it in your hands. You could also tweak a file you get from someone else to make it fit your exact idea, on a whim. That's drastically reduced costs when you compare it to other ways of making one-off custom parts.

Almost everyone asks "Boy, I wish I could have a house like I want". You are thinking too small, imagine a 3D printer that makes houses at a 10th of the current costs. Just looking at what they do now is not enough. Techniques are improving, technologies are changing, materials are being discovered. What is today is not the limit of what is possible.

But virtually nobody is going to buy a 3D printer to print a house for themselves. They're going to call up their local house building company, send over the drawings they came up with together with their architect and then the house-building company will make the house using whatever technique is best, which may very well be a 3d-printer.

I think 3D does have future in commercial settings and offering on demand print services, but I still doubt most people will have one in their home in the near future.

Mass-produced prefab houses can be really cheap. I don't think a printer is the right way to make things cheaper. You can always make things cheaper at scale in a factory than you can as one-offs in your house.

Most of what I see in my house is made from a fair number of parts, each of which took some rather complex tooling to manufacture. Even the simple-looking stuff took a lot to produce.

Those plain sandals on the floor? They needed three different looms for the three kinds of fabric, plus whatever kind of molder is used for the rubber sole. And sewing machines in various configurations.

That tea kettle? It needs to be made of parts that can withstand extreme heat. It's got a copper bottom and steel sides, plus a handle that must be made of some kind of heat-resistant plastic.

That briefcase? Fake leather (however that's made), steel hardware of various sorts, and zippers. All hooked together with riveters, sewing machines, and other tools.

Most items you own are the result of a large number of industrial processes. There's an amazingly intricate web of raw materials producers and manufacturers behind nearly everything. Conceivably, some or many of these processes could be replaced with printing, but that's not even on the horizon at this point.

To be more specific, I see big challenges in printing materials with the right properties: flexibility, tensile strength, etc.. There's a reason we use so many different materials in today's products.

And then there are the challenges of printing electrical devices. Many of these involve quite a few materials, such as copper, silver, gold, tungsten, and on and on. Many also involve a high degree of miniaturization (I'm thinking of chips here).

I completely agree. I keep hearing people talking about printing electronics, car parts, and all kinds of ridiculous things. Yes you can make plastic stuff and molds etc. but no 3d printer is going to be able to make a blueray player or anything that isn't just plastic and looking like it was made to be sold in a dollar store.

Sometimes I feel like tech people get focused on new ideas that they overvalue them and don't realize there are other ways to do things. A lot of the stuff I hear people dreaming about can already be done on a CNC milling machines or even on a regular milling machine with a competent machinist. If you want something cool made out of metal draw it up and go to a machine shop. No need to wait for 3d printers to progress to Star Trek functionality (they probably wont in your lifetime).

But its likely that with improvements in the technology, the downsides you mention like print time, small range of applications, etc. might be solved.

Its really similar to when the first PCs came out - only hobbyists were using them, and most people probably didn't have much use for them, until easier to use OSes like Mac/Windows came out.

Don't forget the metal doohickeys, too.

How much of the stuff in your life could be made by snapping together plastic and metal doohickeys?

As little as I can get away with!

Almost nothing. (Is my sarcasm detector not working? Do normal people really have houses full of printable plastic?)

The kitchen is a good place to do this exercise.

While I understand and (for the moment) agree with your point, this was most certainly true of computers in their infancy as well. Most people had no context to assume that computers would take off and become ubiquitous and vital to so many parts of our lives.

It also takes a lot of time to conceive of/design a program, develop or have someone develop it, debug it, distribute it, and get people to download and install it. But this has happened, and on a grand scale, due to a steady progression of improved demand and increased efficiency of supply.

I do not mean to suggest that 3D printing will find the same reach as computing, or in the same way. I simply mean to point out that we do not yet have the perspective to see where it might go or how it might make itself indispensable (or at least invasive) on a commercial level.

I think there is a worldwide market for maybe five 3D printers.