How many people will be qualified and be able to find work in a world where all industry is 3d printing to pay for the cartridges for their 3d printers or will everyone simply 3d print the money they need to buy 3d printed stuff from 3d printing retailers’ 3d printed robots working from 3d printed office cubes since no one will own their own 3d printers any more than they would own their own computers and cars and will be paying monthly fees for everything instead?
Seems like everything is now a monthly charge so we can never “pay off” what we buy.
Idea people with the means and determination to create and bring desirable “things” to fruition via CAD will prosper, so long as intellectual property is respected. It’ll even be a boom for unique, beautiful and desirable things. But, they won’t be cheap. Custom manufacturing never is, even with 3D printing.
“How many people will be qualified and be able to find work ... all industry is 3d printing ... 3d printers ... 3d print the money ... 3d printed ... 3d printing ... 3d printed robots ... 3d printed office cubes ... own 3d printers... monthly fees for everything instead?...”
Great series of circularities.
Digital-pioneer optimists are morons. Optimistic, ignorant, overbearing morons: just because a few trends have been hopeful, for a few years, we dare not assume that all conditions will improve, indefinitely, without exception. Trend is not destiny.
3D printing cannot replace more traditional methods of manufacture and construction in all cases. For example: it’s not going to make firearms.
Firearms require tempered steel: springs and hardened parts (hammers, triggers, sears, pins etc) simply cannot be made the way 3D printers build up material in increments, to create an object.
And final assembly cannot be accomplished by tossing all the parts into a box for a robot to slap together. Fitting is always required: some need more, some need less. Handwork and a trained eye, seasoned by good judgment and experience, are essential. Human skill.