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"And it's really not so much the govt and large businesses' capabilities that are important here as it is the fact that smaller entities are now capable of doing with these new technologies what only large scale enterprises were previously able to do. New tools, new methods and new materials, when priced as cheaply as these are, favor the nimble and the imaginative not the large and the bureaucratic."

In the very short term, yes. In the medium/long term, these technologies get coopted and scaled by large corporations, giving them even more pricing advantage over smaller players. This leads to more centralization over time, not less. Who benefited in the end from the digital/PC/internet revolution? It wasn't local/small businesses.

Hobby-level 3D printers are cheap, but not good. Ones that can produce usable mechanical parts are not inexpensive by any stretch of the imagination. I'm currently having to use 3D printed parts from a $1,200 machine for a project I'm working on. This wouldn't be possible if we didn't also have a full machine shop because the printer can't hold usable tolerances for placement or dimensions of things like clearance holes. All features other than the bulk shape have to be added the old-fashioned way on a drill-press, lathe, or knee-mill. Quite frankly, it wouldn't be economically feasible compared to standard machining out of aluminum if I counted my hours in the project costs. The only real advantage I get is some small weight savings.

But eventually where all of this (3D printing) is going is that most if not all of the small independent machine shops that now dot the countryside will be replaced by whoever ends up being the "Amazon of 3D printing". Anybody who needs a part made will just upload their file, and it will show up on their doorstep 1-3 days later for about 1/4 of what a local company would have to charge to keep the doors open. Alot of draftsmen will be put out of work as well, because after the part is drawn once -anywhere- it will be available for download from that same "Amazon of 3D" or some other place for free or next-to-nothing. That's where I see it going anyways, and it's pretty hard to imagine that's not going to happen because corporate "printer farms" using this model are already starting to pop up and put smaller players out of the 3D business.

I agree with you that the midsize print shops turning out parts for local businesses and manufacturers will have a hard time finding a place but I think in the (not so) long run, when the Moore's Law of printing kicks in, even the "Amazon of 3D printing" - whoever that turns out to be - will have a hard time competing with local printers. With cheap, reliable and accurate 3D printouts available in your shop and eventually everyone's home, who will be willing to pay the middleman's markup or wait 2 days for delivery? Yeah, the quality is not quite there yet, but it's coming. Have you seen the realtime measurement feedback loops they're coming out with on hobbyist machines? Two years ago you had to pay the big bucks for that. Two more years and it will be pretty much standard on every printer.

Either way, it doesn't really matter to me. I have options I never dreamed about 10 years ago and I see only endless opportunities ahead for individual designers and builders and, sooner than later, everyone. We are entering another techno-revolution and we, as a society, are going to lose jobs because of it but there will probably also be a lot of jobs created by it that we can't even imagine from our viewpoint in time. But one thing is for sure, it is going to be very good for us as empowered individuals. It's going to be mighty hard for some govt goober to tell me what I can or cannot have when I just printed it out for myself.