[esw]

You're right - 'perceived' is the operative word here. People are imagining Star Trek replicators, and that's not even close to where we're at.

The whole conversation around 3D printing reminds me a lot of personal computing in the 70s. It's a group of diehards hacking this stuff together, doing it because it's neat. There isn't a hell of a lot you can do with it yet, and no one can really predict what the future of it will be like, but everybody understands that it can be huge.