Perhaps not a paperless society, but computers & the Internet HAVE dramatically decreased the amount of paper we use these days. Just off the top of my head for consumers: Phone books & directories, maps, banking & billing, written correspondence, fax machines, shared scheduling & calendars, media distribution (books, music, movies).
Within the terms that were then understood, they're very well on the way to that though.
The first office I ever worked in, as a summer job as a student, was computerised but used them as glorified typewriters in the main. All the master documents were on paper, punched and organised into lever arch files. Backups? What's a backup? Think back to an old office; row upon row upon row of filing cabinets, carefully indexed. I don't think I've seen that in at least 6-7 years, maybe 10.
I can't remember the last time I found a document where the master copy was on paper. Regularly referred to paper copies are almost exclusively annotated working versions which get destroyed at the end of the process. We circulate documents on paper in some contexts but are equally likely to email them to each other, and that's rising - more often than not, paper is a reference copy for a meeting rather than our master copy.
My employer stopped doing printed payslips and went fully electronic over a year ago. I have paperless billing from two utility companies and could set it up with a third, I just haven't got round to it. I rarely print photos any more. I read eBooks probably slightly more than paper books and definitely read online news rather than newspapers, while magazines are tentatively stepping towards full electronic distribution through both websites and tablet apps. I basically don't send or receive letters any more.
Paper won't go completely any more than cars resulted in the extinction of the domesticated horse, but it seems to me it's heading for much the same specialist/luxury niche in the market.
The biggest thing that people forget when dreaming about 3D printers is that it doesn't making something from nothing: the materials have to come from somewhere.
Even once we get a printer that's easy enough for 'normal' people to use (hard) and a way for them to design the prints that go in the machine (hard) and we make them small and reliable enough that it's acceptable for normal people (hard) you _still_ have to have a big vat of plastic or whatever lying around, and feed it into the machine.
We've got a long way to go before 'a printer in every home' is reality, if it ever does.
My thoughts: it's like water. A big pipe of raw materials. Just imagine how long that'd take...
Even once we get a printer that's easy enough for 'normal' people to use (hard) and a way for them to design the prints that go in the machine (hard)
People won't be designing things themselves, they'll be downloading files and then pressing 'print' on their computer. It's like how people share funny pictures, links get sent around and viewed.
I think we are moving away from ownership and towards a more utility/service-oriented society, so I don't think a 3D printer in every home will ever become a reality.
I don't think this is comparable. There is a large difference in dynamics between the utilization of a computer and that of a 3D printer. I would argue that IBM was largely right -- the vast majority of consumers do not use their computer in the way in which IBM intentioned to speak, as a calculator or database. Most of this work is performed as a utility and consumed over the Internet. The modern home computer provides something in functionality more resembling the telephone than a calculator.
The ONLY purpose of a 3D printer is to produce durable goods. Will there ever be a point at which an average consumer will need such a steady stream of durable goods that a dedicated 3D printer will become a necessity?
I don't need even need a home printer or copier really. The few times a year I actually need one, I can walk around the corner to a Kinko's or use the one at work. This also doesn't compare because a printed document is essentially a custom product designed by myself. And despite the prevalence of home printers, it's still vastly cheaper to print documents using mass production techniques. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see this changing, as durable goods are designed by domain experts and the mechanics behind economies of scale would apply even in the 3D printing realm.
Continued product convergence and ultimately nano-tech will further obsolete the necessity to have the large number of specialized, one-off durable goods required for the average household.
The ONLY purpose of a 3D printer is to produce durable goods.
Who says durable? The perfect printer is far away, but once you have one, you can get rid of a dishwasher and washing machine; you would just feed your printer the dirty stuff, and print whatever you need at the moment.
Even better, you could feed your furniture to your printer to make a different set of furniture for a party, or turn your car into a convertible for a week.
We will have to solve the energy problem, first, though.
We will have to solve the energy problem, first, though.
First catch your hare indeed....
The energy implications of shredding and remanufacturing essentially the same items rather than cleaning them just makes me shudder. That really can't be efficient by any definition.
the vast majority of consumers do not use their computer in the way in which IBM intentioned to speak, as a calculator or database
The lesson being that this technology, like computers, holds nearly unlimited potential and yet it's still too early for us to predict quite how its going to be used.
If you ask someone thoroughly steeped in the status quo what it's good for, he's very likely to think of it as an extension of current economic properties. (faster, cheaper, sooner, more custom, etc.) He might even realize its potential to be "disruptive". That's where the Economist article is.
Once you start publicly speculating where the post-disruptive state might settle, then you become a science fiction author.
Will there ever be a point at which an average consumer will need such a steady stream of durable goods that a dedicated 3D printer will become a necessity?
Hang out outside a busy WalMart or Target some Saturday afternoon. There's your steady stream.
Perhaps there will be a 'Kinkos' for all your 3D printing needs on every street corner sometime in the future. Head down there with your broken dinner plate or your foot measurements to have a custom item printed off as a replacement plate or custom shoe.