Fascinating that the economist predicted the decline of the music industry, but everyone who's predicting that 3D printing will destroy the economy of physical

Fascinating that the economist predicted the decline of the music industry, but everyone who's predicting that 3D printing will destroy the economy of physical things either doesn't understand 3d printing, making physical things, or both. 3D printing is great if you want crappy things made out of a single material. In the future it will be better for things made of some composites, but at the end of the day there are so many necessary processes and materials to create physical objects that 3D printing will always apply to niche objects. You can't print a coffee maker reasonably with any machine (glass? heating element? electronics, etc?) much less an iPhone. Furthermore, there will increasingly be a software layer. I imagine HN readers are familiar with the economics of the software industry, but I'd just say that if physical objects adopt a software model (freemium, charge for updates, etc), and can do away with global supply chains etc, that will be a net win, not some destructive, music-industry-scale disaster. That said, I love 3D printing and use it all the time. But it's only useful for customized, on-demand, or one-off stuff. It's already a burden to curate your own goods -- that's what people who are into, say, fashion spend time on -- who really believes we're all going to spend all day customizing our things? Unrealistic. So, no. Gotta say I don't agree.