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The 3D Economy — What Happens When Everyone Prints Their Own Shoes?

Posted by Soulskill on from the anarchy-and-chaos-and-sore-feet dept.

cold fjord writes: "According to Reason, 'Last May, Cody Wilson produced an ingeniously brief but nuanced manifesto about individual liberty in the age of the ever-encroaching techno-state-a single shot fired by a plastic pistol fabricated on a leased 3D printer. While Wilson dubbed his gun The Liberator, his interests and concerns are broader than merely protecting the Second Amendment. ... Wilson is ultimately aiming for the 'transcendence of the state.' And yet because of the nature of his invention, many observers reacted to his message as reductively as can be: 'OMG, guns!'... But if armies of Davids really want to transcend the state, there are even stronger weapons at their disposal: toothbrush holders, wall vases, bottle openers, shower caddies, and tape dispensers. ... In many ways, it's even harder to imagine a city of, say, 50,000 without big-box retailers than it is to imagine it without a daily newspaper. So perhaps 3D printing won't alter our old habits that substantially. We'll demand locally made kitchen mops, but we'll still get them at Target. We'll acquire a taste for craft automobile tires, but we'll obtain them from some third party that specializes in their production. Commercial transactions will still occur. But if history is any guide, more and more of us will soon be engaging in all sorts of other behaviors too. Making our own goods. Sharing, swapping, and engaging in peer-to-peer commerce. Appropriating the ideas and designs of others and applying them to our own ends.'"

3 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. So far away by Anrego · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have to imagine that the climb to that level of 3D printing (assuming we ever get there) will be so gradual that society will have plenty of time to adjust.

    1. Re:So far away by DerekLyons · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I doubt it will ever get there... not everyone cooks or even microwaves their own food after all.

      And that's without pondering whether we'll ever get a 3D printer that can print all those things that require so many different characteristics (I.E. so many different materials) - and still be cheap enough to be affordable to the average consumer. The average 3D printing fanboy seems to seriously lack a grasp of just how far we are from practical large scale 3d printing.

  2. Re:Automobile tires? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is what people that think 3D printing will take over the world fail to realize.

    THE MATERIAL PROPERTIES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE SHAPE

    You cannot 3D print out high tensile strength steel wire, because that strength comes from the orientation of the atom and molecules. That orientation is achieved by drawing it through a die.

    Same the polymers that make up the Nylon wire.

    Also the strength in a tire also comes from the directions rubber sheets are applied in.