They won’t need to expand, there’s no logical reason why they should. The supply chain will shrink because there’s fewer steps in the manufacturing process. And we’re already seeing how online distribution shrinks both the marketing and managerial chains. Just look at what has gone one with with media distribution thanks to the internet, as physical media goes away people aren’t consuming less media, they just aren’t buying it from Target anymore.
If 3D printing gets to the point of just being able to do clothes, especially if it’s from recycle starter, then a lot of jobs just evaporate. Just look at how much retails space, and the supply chain that feeds it, is taken up by clothes. If people move to getting clothes by having the printer recycle their own old clothes that chain, and all the jobs that go with it, is just gone.
I don’t know how it all lands out. That’s part of what makes it interesting. But we need to understand these are some serious overhauling technologies. I don’t know how income will be derived, I don’t even know if it winds up being necessary anymore. It could be we wind up landing in a mostly socialist world where there is still money used by people who have jobs but the rest of the world just doesn’t have to worry about it. And maybe those that will never get jobs spend their time doing artistic stuff, or maybe they’re just a vast unwashed mob constantly looking for entertainment.
Pioneers of industry don’t have a problem. Heck that’s a situation in which they thrive. Freed from the day to day grind of a job they can just create and invent and 3D printer will make their models. It’s a great world for entrepreneurs. The problems really come in for everybody else, what are we going to do with people who just don’t have those drives and aspirations. The people who don’t invent, and don’t make art, and really are only productive in the current world because they have to be; what are they going to do when they don’t have to be productive?
There’s a reason I pointed to Star Trek and Judge Dredd, these are both fictional worlds that revolve around technology evolving to the point where jobs are basically unnecessary (Trek never really discusses it, but if you pay attention to the back of the the world you can see that replicators have rendered their world a post job world). One is very happy, one is very not. Which way will we bounce? Don’t know. Certainly hope more Trek, there’s a lot fewer atomic wars. One way or the other though there’s no reason to fear it, fearing the basic nature of reality is a waste of time. But it’s good to understand that these are potentially very big changes, cutting down to basic definitions of how we do things.
I think we were on the same page more than we thought. I’m used to faithless responses of doom because of some of the prospects you suggest. But your outlook I think is a healthy one - nothing to fear, only faith, bravery, and courage like the pioneers of freedom of old.