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Comment by higherpurpose | Hacker News Reader

> Dremel Releases a Mass-Market 3D Printer

> and a $999 price point

No. A 3D printer that's over $500 won't be mass market. Even $500 is probably too high. Most people might buy one if it's only $300 (with good enough quality - which could happen years from now). My guess is it will be another decade before normal families consider a cheap 3D printer, and only then it's when 3D printers will be "mass-market".

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According to the internet ( http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=595+1986+dollars ), my mother paid $1289 for our ImageWriter II in 1986.

Mass market doesn't have to mean 100 million. 1 million is plenty.

Gates: We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next 2 years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10.

Nonsense. All it takes is for the utility of the thing to match or best its price. For example, if the average, every day person is told that they could use a 3D printer to save thousands on car parts, vacuum cleaner parts, and similar it won't take long before everyone has one in their house (or is regularly pestering their neighbor to use theirs, haha). Even at $1000.

And it's not just the cost. Printing things has to be as easy as printing text which can still be annoying. Maybe someday there will be a sequel to Office Space in which they destroy a 3d-printer with the futuristic equivalent of baseball bats.

https://flic.kr/p/dUExnL

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