[jeffreyrogers]

In the past there was a lot more local production. It switched to centralized production because that was cheaper and people valued cheap over custom. I doubt that will change anytime soon. Also a lot of the most useful materials are not amenable to 3d printing and CNC is non-trivial to operate because you have to deal with inventory, setup fixtures, cleanup parts, etc. Most people don't want to deal with the hassle and have other things they'd rather spend their time on. There are definitely a lot of cool things happening in this space, but I just don't see it being the revolutionary change other people do.

[tsungxu]

I think the shift to centralized production is not necessarily permanent.

Energy generation is decentralizing again. We can make more and more manufacturing feedstocks (metals, H2, CO2, biomolecules) using more modular processes that can also be decentralized.

[jeffreyrogers]

Energy generation isn't really decentralizing in a meaningful way. Sure individuals can have their own solar panels or wind turbines (and for many people this makes sense), but the most efficient renewable projects are big centralized projects that take up a lot of land area. I believe it will always be that way for economy of scale reasons. This also means that large electricity consumers who can position themselves near cheap sources of electricity will have a cost advantage, which again increases the returns to centralized manufacturing.