[4ydx]

It may well be a pipe dream, but I am simply waiting for the day when open sourced 3d printable goods are being designed and improved by more and more "consumers". It may not ever happen on the scale I would like to see it happen, but that model of pull (rather than the current pushing of new goods on people followed by a sales cycle) is much more appealing to me. Maybe people don't really know what they want and are more slaves to advertising that I would like to believe.

[calinet6]

Not to rain on this parade, but I think we're a long way off from having a generic method to 3D print a wide variety of things that are of useful and respectable quality.

It's kind of like generic programming frameworks: the more generic a framework is, the more generic its output, and the less tailored to the needs and human nuances of the end user. The highest quality experiences are often layers of abstraction gradually growing more human and more unique as they get closer to the user.

3D printing can achieve a level of quality in many ways and for many purposes, but it remains to be seen if it can reproduce the important levels above the logical.

[smil]

Agree, the system of industrial manufacturing depends on push-marketing to increase or maintain profitability since it requires large startup costs, and only really becomes viable when done at large scale.

I think Industry 4.0 is a more likely factor for change than 3d printing, though.