[FinnLobsien]

Exactly. Right now it’s easy to look at it as a relatively niche thing.

But at the time it was going to be the next big thing transforming everything.

Same as 3D printing. Certainly cool and useful in some niche contexts, but it has not disrupted manufacturing.

[gligorot]

I would argue it disrupted engineering. So many videos on YouTube can be found of people cutting out expensive molds (for example) and getting a product to market faster and cheaper. And this is happening in companies as well (Prusa released an enterprise grade printer not long ago).

At the same time, Printables and MakerWorld are flooded with…toys. They gamified their platforms and a ton of “thingy” models, ex. generic planter pots (some of them just renders, never even printed!) is the result.

This certainly hides the benefit but I very much think it’s there.

[Ekaros]

There is places and things that work for 3d printing. Very small scale manufacturing. Prototypes. But actually selling those is somewhat hard and not scalable market. And home printing... Yeah that sounds like hobbyist to me with corresponding market.

On other side you get to complex topologies and very specialised parts. Again pretty hard to scale and limited demand.

In the end it is manufacturing and manufacturing is huge. But also generally does not have great margins. It has lot of competition. So 3D printing would end up there with others say makers of CNC machines, various presses and so on. Multi-billion dollar industry, but not tech.

[FinnLobsien]

This is precisely what I mean though. It's a technology that has found its place and is definitely useful and a value-add to society.

But if we look at the types of predictions made in the early days (print a house in a day for under $5k, print any food you want at home, obviating factories you can make anything at home...), almost none of that has come through.

And that doesn't mean it's a bad technology. Most technologies don't revolutionize the average person's life, but can still change corners of civilization.

But compare that to the internet, which has literally changed how we do basically everything in our daily lives.

I think the point is that most technologies are like 3D printing while the current narrative is that AI will be more like the internet.