There are some business models that 3d printing will entirely replace within 10 years.
Replacements for plastic game pieces.
Custom made dildos shaped like your partner's wang.
ok, that's pretty much the only 2 I can think of right now.
My prediction is that the whole 3D printing thing will collapse in on itself - people will use 3D printers to pirate 3D printers, and by about the third generation of copies, none of them will work properly.
considering that model pieces come on those tree like grid things you could easily print those and then snap the parts out.
You could probably do the same with lego.
Maybe the future is that you can buy downloadable print templates from the different companies that make these plastic components with a 1 print off expiry or something like that.
It would sure put the whammy on the manufacturing industry.
Sure you could do the same thing with Lego, but why when you could go to the store, likely spend less due the economy of scale and get real Lego.
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Rapid prototyping makes sense and one off obsolete parts makes sense but any initial construction injection molding on a production line will be way more efficient. So I don't see obsoleting entire business but it may force the charge lots for replacements parts busiessses to lower prices
The Following User Says Thank You to GGG For This Useful Post:
John Connor: I need a minute here. You're telling me that this printer can imitate anything it touches?
The Terminator: Anything it samples by CAD.
John Connor: Get real, like it could disguise itself as a pack of cigarettes?
The Terminator: Yes.
John Connor: Why doesnt it become a bomb or something to get me?
The Terminator: It cant form complex machines, guns and explosives have chemicals, moving parts, it doesn't work that way, but it can form solid metal shapes.
John Connor: Like what?
The Terminator: Knives and stabbing weapons.
Well, they already mention in that article that this gun doesn't need to have any metal parts except for a nail.
The game changer part is that while yes, you can make a gun right now if you know what you're doing, with this you can make one even if you don't. A friend of mine already has those plans. He is a very nerdy guy, who otherwise would have no idea as to where he could get an unlicensed gun, and he certainly couldn't build one. But now all he needs is a 3d printer, and he can churn out as many as he likes.
Kind of makes the idea of gun control go *poof*
As to whole business models going extinct, think
a) anything that's about manufacturing smallish items for which packaging and handling are a large part of the price. Which is actually a ton of stuff from toys to board games to spare parts for just about anything.
b) all the middle men between the designer and the customer, like delivery services and internet shops.
Let's take the already mentioned dildos because it's always funny, but really you could talk about anything that's not electronic and not huge. Right now you often have one company who designs it, one who makes it, one who stores it, one who sells it and any number from one to half a dozen who deliver it to the customer. Plus the company who makes the packaging and so forth. That's a lot of middle-men.
With 3d printing, you can remove everything except the designer and the customer; although the company that does the sales will propably have a role in man cases. Still, that's a lot of steps removed. There are a lot of companies that make a living by being the middle-men between the designer and the customer.
IMO it's much the same as what digitalization has done to music. Today you won't think it does much, and five years from now you will think back how inconvenient it was when you couldn't just print a new copy of the same lamp or hockey helmet you just broke. Because that's one of the things that will happen. Buy something once and you have as many copies as you like for the price of raw materials.
Fascinating article, and honestly I'm shocked that this happened so quickly, I thought we were still a couple years away from 100% fully printable guns. It'll be really interesting to watch how the industry money behind the NRA reacts to this technology. On the one hand, it's certainly something that fits with the whole 'liberty' agenda, but at the same time it's a massively controversial issue that doesn't actually have any upside for gun manufacturers, and if it goes too far, actually might start to cut into their sales.
Anyway, this won't actually become an issue in the media until some kid gets shot with a 3D printed gun.
As for the general 3D printing discussion, I think what most people are saying about economy of scale is right. It'll never make sense to 3D print something that is commonly mass-produced (like standard Lego), but replacement parts, customization, obsolete parts are all segments where there is real potential for 3D printing.
I've done some stuff with home-built CNC machines, and one thing that fascinates me is how in the last few years, there's such a demand for these machines that items that were once 3D-printed or machined are now mass produced, because the audience is large enough that it's profitable. It used to be that the CNC kits you ordered were full of big, heavy, MDF parts that had been cut on a CNC machine themselves. Now, crucial components are kickstarted and then manufactured using mass production techniques (particularly extruded aluminum profiles, in the example I'm thinking of). These are common to CNC machines, 3D printers, and laser-printers, so it creates quite a large potential audience. And then parts that are unique to your set up (maybe connectors for your particular cutting tool), you'll need to manufacture yourself using whatever technologies you have at your disposal.
It's sort of gone from "hey, soon we'll have machines that we can print anything on, even themselves!" to "hey, there are so many of us wanting these machines that it makes more sense to just get them mass produced."
Well, they already mention in that article that this gun doesn't need to have any metal parts except for a nail.
The game changer part is that while yes, you can make a gun right now if you know what you're doing, with this you can make one even if you don't. A friend of mine already has those plans. He is a very nerdy guy, who otherwise would have no idea as to where he could get an unlicensed gun, and he certainly couldn't build one. But now all he needs is a 3d printer, and he can churn out as many as he likes.
Kind of makes the idea of gun control go *poof*
Ok, but how is that much difference from this? It is also way easier to secure the parts for it.
BTW I'm posting this only for reference, not to encourage anyone.
Ok, but how is that much difference from this? It is also way easier to secure the parts for it.
BTW I'm posting this only for reference, not to encourage anyone.
Well, the difference isn't much if you know what you're doing. If you don't, then it is. Unless you're someone who is used to building stuff with their hands, you're propably never going to get around to doing that.
Also, not plastic, so you can't take that into a courtroom, a classroom or an airplane...
Similar to how modern scanners likely won't scan currency
Modern scanners/printers won't scan currency, at least not the ones I used when I worked in the finance industry. When they brought us our new machine, the rep showed us that it wouldn't scan currency.
I don't know much about this 3D printing thing, other than a couple of little blurbs I sort of surfed rather than read, so this whole discussion has been very interesting to me, to read.
Modern scanners/printers won't scan currency, at least not the ones I used when I worked in the finance industry. When they brought us our new machine, the rep showed us that it wouldn't scan currency.
I don't know much about this 3D printing thing, other than a couple of little blurbs I sort of surfed rather than read, so this whole discussion has been very interesting to me, to read.
One thing to remember is that 3D printing is not just plastic, metal has been used for a long time already, chocolate and concrete are among the newer materials available, and currently a lot of work is being done on cells, so you could build organs for transplant use.
