Is 3d printing in the same developmental place as the Internet/PC was twenty years ago? How different will the consumer model be twenty years from now?
I think of my 3d printer more like an early microwave. It’s big, loud, inefficient and difficult to use. People come over to see it and think, “Well that’s nice but I could never see myself using one.” Maybe at some point in the future they’ll be ubiquitous. Until then I’m enjoying what I have.
In answer to your question @Eric_Mattison yes and no :-). I have been very close to both the emergence of the Internet and the emergence of the PC. The Internet from my perspective was the ARPAnet in early form and took 20 years (1975 - 1995) to go ‘mainstream’, the PC had a similar trajectory although 9 years to the ‘PC’ (1972 (Altair 8800) - 1981 (IBM PC)) but another 11 years before “regular” people cared (1992 wide spread use) and then 20 more years for laptops to dominate. All said though what the Internet offered and PCs offered was eventually utility and they replaced something which previously could not be done economically.
Current 3D printers can “make things” but they make crappy things, they make inconsistently strong things, different printers cannot make all things, and not all materials are usable on all even mainstream printers. So all of that points to a very early market. In another 5 years there will be enough impact here to align a DOW chemical type to create materials specifically for this market and between engineering base materials, improved handling and thermal control, and a wider variety of multi-material printing, you will get to a point where a printer can print something useful for a large enough audience to start tempting non-gadget freaks to own one. There will be a large legal firestorm that will have to burn through all of the crazy ideas about what is “ownable” with a 3D printer (trust me there will be designers who will sue people for posting build instructions for a ‘cute lampshade’ or some such thing that was designed by said designer). There will a huge pushback from the folks who will be displaced (like maybe the folks who supply grocery stores with plastic spoons or something). Various scary pieces of journalism about how the printers are dangerous, or the things they print are dangerous, or the that they corrupt the youth and threaten tradition. Some of that is already ongoing with the silly gun printing “scare”.
So in broad strokes, yes it is early. As it gets to be a ‘thing’ the people threatened by it will use their resources to try to kill it. If 3D printing survives that there will be a huge ‘hype’ bubble where all sorts of over promised and under delivered capabilities will be sold to gullible people who will then sue everyone in sight, causing a crash. And then there will be a modest growth of ‘on site manufacturing’ capability which will augment our daily lives with materials can can be recyled on site into different things resulting in smaller ‘stuff’ foot print but a slightly larger energy consumption footprint.
No, far from it. Because we have the Internet and a thriving Open Source movement for hardware, electronics and software that enable us all to share ideas and rapidly develop and redevelop ideas. The rate of change and improvement is far better.
Who knows what developments will come. Twenty years from now it may be like looking at the Right Brothers 1903 Wright Flyer and something like SpaceShipTwo and wondering how we got from one to the other.
I was working in IT before the Internet, it’s changed the world a lot.
20 years ago? Hell no. 20 years ago was 1994, PCs were commodity products made for consumers by then. PCs 30 years ago would be closer to an accurate analogy, though like @Mark_MARKSE_Emery said, they’re progressing much faster.
To me we are about where it was way back when I bought a Sinclair ZX81 kit. lots of potential, a rapidly developing userbase although it was in printed form back then and most of the small computers that existed were from fellow hobbyist. And users could tinker both with the hardware and software. Not like now where you simply plug in a board. But they were vastly slower and less powerful compared to today’s computers. Hopefully the 3D printer of the future will evolve similarly.
Even a lot of “makers” don’t own a 3D printer, so I agree more with the 30 year point than 20, if not even older.
I feel like this is the time. In the 91 I started in college and very few people had computers and the WWW as we know it today really didn’t exist. PCs were just starting to get used heavily in business, Windows 3.0 anyone? Most people simply did not understand them. I feel like 3d printers are kind of in that stage where some business (ie rapid prototyping and modeling) has been transformed by the technology and the cost of ownership is just barely in consumer reach.
Fast forward 20 years, and my daughter will be printing the latest fashion which will be tracking her health and stress levels on her way to college.
What will 3d kill? Can anyone envision malls existing like they do now? Will clothing and shoe manufacturing be relegated to high end splurges?