I use the arrow keys to scroll when reading web pages. This site uses JavaScript to add behaviour to the arrow keys for a reason I cannot fathom. Web developers, please avoid JavaScript at all costs. Unless you know precisely what you are doing, you will only mess up a user’s experience.
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?
Another annoying "feature" of the page is that ctrl-f is overridden to take you to their FeedBurner page. Why that would ever need a keyboard shortcut is beyond me, but assigning it to ctrl-f is just crazy.
I simply left the webpage after scrolling up and down a few times in confusion with my arrow keys. I don't believe I've ever missed important content after leaving from a webpage that can't give me a proper user experience.
I know what you mean. I use hjkl to navigate (vimium). Many sites who are careful about not overriding arrow keys don't imagine someone using other keys to navigate.
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.
A downside of customizing products is that you have to think about and describe what you actually want. Personally, I would prefer somewhat less freedom of choice, and more free time :)
An interesting read might be "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz (2004).
Your shelving can be easily built by a competent craftsman using currently-available tools and materials in little time. (And you can probably do it yourself if you're not a total klutz—as, admittedly, some of us are—and can handle a four-hour New Yankee Workshop marathon.) There are places where you can't swing a cat without hitting an artisan bookbinder, and Roland (among others) have been making desktop CNC engraving machines for a very long time now. That leaves only your laptop, as far as I can see.
Your comments about furniture got me thinking: it's going to be hard to build furniture in a home-sized printer. How practical would it be to print hundreds of manageably-sized plastic parts that could be fit into a shelf or couch or something? I know there's research being done on this.
"Just a little heads up. In the long run there is no money in 3D printing."
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.
This article is poorly thought out and has little-to-no conception of the difference between theory and reality. For example, many things cannot be made in smaller pieces and then assembled, so size could become a huge barrier to adopting 3D printing for something like, say, construction. Not to mention the energy that such a machine would use. 3D printing will lead to lots of changes in design and democratization of production, I'm sure, but there's still a bigger picture that's completely absent from this article's consideration.
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.
Not really. He's not saying that there would only be a few of them deployed, he's saying that once you've deployed a few, those few will be used to make more, and you won't be able to sell yours for more than the cost of materials, since anyone who has already bought one from you can undercut you.
I think this will not be a real problem for a really long time, but it's actually an audacious vision rather than a too limited one.
I thought of the same. Although the quote itself can't be attributed to Watson or anyone else for that regard, what the quote says used to be true. During the time, in 1943 there indeed was not much more market for a computer than the about five pieces of them.
I'm curious to learn what Google has in mind. They surely employ lots of groundbreaking people when it comes to futuristic technology. Kurzweil and Norvig alone make a huge impact.
There's no money in 3D printing, and also, no money in everything since everything can be made by this Universal Making Machine.
This article's argument is nonsense. If the Universal Making Machine is made, not there's no money but money can be abandoned. One can use this machine to get anything he want, so why we need money anyway?
Raw materials would still cost something, or at the very least electricity would cost something. Services would still cost something, and you can't print an internet.
I disagree completely. This is like saying that because mainframes were being replaced by personal computers, there was not going to be money with them, when in fact the opposite thing happened with Apple being one of the biggest companies in the world.
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 think the guy has a point but I agree it's premature. It's like saying their us no point in making printers for computers because eventually we'll be a mostly paperless society.
His point seems correct that ultimately you'll just use the 3d printer you have to print another 3d printer. But that day is a long long way off. There's at least 10 or 20 years ahead for companies to make money selling 3d printers.
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.
Monsanto is not a good comparison because they force you to buy seeds from them the next year. You are not allowed to collect seeds from the plants you grow and they will sue you. And our judicial system agrees with Monsanto because we think DNA is patentable. This will hit the supreme court in February.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which ruled that "once a grower, like Bowman, plants the commodity seeds containing Monsanto's Roundup Ready technology and the next generation of seed develops, the grower has created a newly infringing article."
I disagree with the articles conclusion. It does make some good points about costs and how a dedicated tool is better but if we just go back a little in time and look at laser printers and other types of home printing over using a comercial print shop and you see alot of parralels, ink cost being one that still holds with us today, even with `major` players in the feild.
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.
This is all very theoretical, but makes no sense in reality. This guy should take a look at the complexity in manufacturing for instance an image sensor, and then think twice about his "universal maker".
haha, very much agree agree. his initial arguments about a 'universal printer' diluting the market in time seem to hold more water in the realm of hypothetical machines than real ones (for some reason the mental image of self-replicating Universal Turing Machines with a printing functionality came to mind :P)
in reality, there a number of principles in the realm of material physics that might constrain a machine simply 'printing itself'. In the near and medium terms, 3D printers that transform 3D CAD renderings into smaller objects will command a real market niche. In the long term, we will be talking about molecular fabrication (matter compilers a la "Diamond Age")-- but that is a whole other ball game :p
I'm dentist. Dentists pay dental labors billions of dollars yearly to print their teeth. Did you hear about CAD/CAM teeth? We don't model teeth manually anymore, we use 3d printers instead. There are also other industries where 3d printers are used intensively.
I guess that means there is only a market for one lathe[1] and one milling machine[2] since when you buy one, you can then make your own.
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.
The money made to be made (and saved) is based off the prototypes of products created using 3D printing that are mocked up and tweaked, before the designs are handed over to a production line to mass produce.
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.
I think we've already heard this type of argument about the world needing 3 computers or that the FOSS world is not going to make any money or ... come on...
The author's arguement makes grand leaps of logic that sound great - but won't hold up in the short term of the next 10 years. In 30 years, the price of such a service will become a commidity - like our ink jet printers today. The author uses language that could easily be used in the same vein as describing the creation of the Earth as a non-event.
Rather silly article on many fronts.
Not everyone has enough cash to get the machine. Those who do, can profit off their downpayment by renting or selling the goods it makes.
To say that model wont turn a profit is silly. Its a rather old business model...
[+] [-] evincarofautumn|13 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] mistercow|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cabalamat|13 years ago|reply
What would be useful is a web browser that simply refuses to change the behaviour of common idioms (such as down arrow).
[+] [-] green7ea|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greggman|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JacksonGariety|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] columbo|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] smokel|13 years ago|reply
An interesting read might be "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz (2004).
[+] [-] stan_rogers|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewflnr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jivatmanx|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dan-k|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradshaw1965|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kybernetikos|13 years ago|reply
I think this will not be a real problem for a really long time, but it's actually an audacious vision rather than a too limited one.
[+] [-] zxcdw|13 years ago|reply
I thought of the same. Although the quote itself can't be attributed to Watson or anyone else for that regard, what the quote says used to be true. During the time, in 1943 there indeed was not much more market for a computer than the about five pieces of them.
I'm curious to learn what Google has in mind. They surely employ lots of groundbreaking people when it comes to futuristic technology. Kurzweil and Norvig alone make a huge impact.
[+] [-] zhouyisu|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evan_|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forgottenpaswrd|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] greggman|13 years ago|reply
His point seems correct that ultimately you'll just use the 3d printer you have to print another 3d printer. But that day is a long long way off. There's at least 10 or 20 years ahead for companies to make money selling 3d printers.
[+] [-] ukoki|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] amalag|13 years ago|reply
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which ruled that "once a grower, like Bowman, plants the commodity seeds containing Monsanto's Roundup Ready technology and the next generation of seed develops, the grower has created a newly infringing article."
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037589_monsanto_saving_seeds_farm...
[+] [-] Zenst|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] zachrose|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wlievens|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbennett|13 years ago|reply
in reality, there a number of principles in the realm of material physics that might constrain a machine simply 'printing itself'. In the near and medium terms, 3D printers that transform 3D CAD renderings into smaller objects will command a real market niche. In the long term, we will be talking about molecular fabrication (matter compilers a la "Diamond Age")-- but that is a whole other ball game :p
[+] [-] zeynalov|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pixl97|13 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] digitalboss|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] RRRA|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jstultz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] czbond|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBlake|13 years ago|reply
To say that model wont turn a profit is silly. Its a rather old business model...
(landlords, rentacenter, new car leasing, etc..)
[+] [-] justincormack|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pazimzadeh|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies