There is an interesting precedent for small scale production through automation, and it already played out twenty years ago: the possibilities of CNC-machining

There is an interesting precedent for small scale production through automation, and it already played out twenty years ago: the possibilities of CNC-machining aluminium parts created a huge amount of diversity of offerings in the market of mountain bike parts. At the height of this wave you would have been able to equip a whole club of riders with different brake designs in funky anodized colors. Very few of those manufacturers survived, because mass production methods involving casting and forging still had (and have, and will likely continue to have) an edge in price and performance. It's nice to see the premium required for low volume production shrink, but I doubt that it will ever disappear.