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I was working on software in the 3D printing space back in 2012, and I too thought it was going to be something big that looked like a toy. However, I got out

by iamwil 7y ago

I was working on software in the 3D printing space back in 2012, and I too thought it was going to be something big that looked like a toy. However, I got out once I realized that speed of prints mattered a lot of consumers. And the current methods of consumer 3D printers were FDM (fused deposition modeling) and Stereolithography, which both had asymptotic limitation on how fast you can get a print to go. For FDM, there's a head you need to shunt back and forth. For Sterolithography, the consumer printers like Form 1 had a mechanical step between each layer. Unlike chips with Moore's law or LEDs with Haitz's law, 3D printers aren't going to get much faster. That's when I got out. So in order to get an order of magnitude faster print, someone needed to invent a completely different method--a step function. So I think it's not just that it's a hobby, but you might need another criteria, like there's at least a plausible incremental path to improvement along the parameter that the market would care about.

greggman2 7y ago
PDAs fit this IMO. We had newtons, palm pilots (Clie), Windows CE, devices (iPaq, Axim, ...), all of them were for geeks/hobbyists only until iPhone. Anyone carrying one was considered a geek out of the norm. Now you couldn't pry a smartphone from a non-geek's hands.
- irrational 7y ago
  I was a geeky programmer (still am), but I had absolutely no interest in owning a cell phone or any other PDA until the first iPhone came out. I was floored by it. The touch screen, the built in useable web browser, the apps, etc. were so much better than what had come before.
- tluyben2 7y ago
  I had palm pilots, Psions, a Newton (wow that thing was huge) and some Windows CE devices (HP all of them); I was considered a geek at first for that sure, but I didn't have to lug around an agenda and notebook (esp Psion replaced that in 1 device which was nice to use) and when 2g became a thing, I had Windows CE HP 'phones' (bulky, with keyboard and very fragile) but when on vacation I did all my company business on there (buying, selling, talking to developers, setting meetings, sending/receiving emails) while my colleagues had to go to internet cafe's or lug around laptops. But yeah, they were things for geeks, mostly impractical unless you really wanted to use them (which I did; I hate carrying crap around); iPhone changed that to making it easy to use. Ofcourse I bought that the moment it came out in my country (iphone 3g) and never looked back. That one is also still working by the way, not that I have any real use for it :)
blihp 7y ago
It's far too early for most consumers... despite what the promoters claimed.[1] Most of the same issues existed with paper printers in the 80's: they could be fiddly, slow, noisy, power hungry, prone to jam and messy. If you had to print something too much longer than a book report, you had to keep your eyes on it while it printed and cross your fingers. There was no Moore's law for paper printers, just years of incremental improvements in the respective technologies and mechanisms. In time, the problems will get solved and then we'll see how big the consumer market for them is or isn't. [1] Names like 'Replicator' conjuring visions of Star Trek when the thing most printers were able to produce were variants of piles of expensive plastic spaghetti when prints go wrong.
- tluyben2 7y ago
  But for paper printers you had no alternatives... So you just focused and printed. You could not take your luggable[0] out in the train and read off screen. Or take it to the couche or sit in your college bench. For 3d printers etc we have alternatives that are fine; we don't actually need them for anything urgent. [0] https://oldcomputers.net/pics/osborne1.jpg https://oldcomputers.net/pics/osborne1.jpg
drran 7y ago
See https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2019/10/biggest-fastest-3d-printer-is-future-of-manufacturing/ https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2019/10/biggest-fastes...

by iamwil 7y ago

greggman2 7y ago

PDAs fit this IMO. We had newtons, palm pilots (Clie), Windows CE, devices (iPaq, Axim, ...), all of them were for geeks/hobbyists only until iPhone. Anyone carrying one was considered a geek out of the norm. Now you couldn't pry a smartphone from a non-geek's hands.

irrational 7y ago
I was a geeky programmer (still am), but I had absolutely no interest in owning a cell phone or any other PDA until the first iPhone came out. I was floored by it. The touch screen, the built in useable web browser, the apps, etc. were so much better than what had come before.
tluyben2 7y ago
I had palm pilots, Psions, a Newton (wow that thing was huge) and some Windows CE devices (HP all of them); I was considered a geek at first for that sure, but I didn't have to lug around an agenda and notebook (esp Psion replaced that in 1 device which was nice to use) and when 2g became a thing, I had Windows CE HP 'phones' (bulky, with keyboard and very fragile) but when on vacation I did all my company business on there (buying, selling, talking to developers, setting meetings, sending/receiving emails) while my colleagues had to go to internet cafe's or lug around laptops. But yeah, they were things for geeks, mostly impractical unless you really wanted to use them (which I did; I hate carrying crap around); iPhone changed that to making it easy to use. Ofcourse I bought that the moment it came out in my country (iphone 3g) and never looked back. That one is also still working by the way, not that I have any real use for it :)

blihp 7y ago

It's far too early for most consumers... despite what the promoters claimed.[1] Most of the same issues existed with paper printers in the 80's: they could be fiddly, slow, noisy, power hungry, prone to jam and messy. If you had to print something too much longer than a book report, you had to keep your eyes on it while it printed and cross your fingers. There was no Moore's law for paper printers, just years of incremental improvements in the respective technologies and mechanisms. In time, the problems will get solved and then we'll see how big the consumer market for them is or isn't. [1] Names like 'Replicator' conjuring visions of Star Trek when the thing most printers were able to produce were variants of piles of expensive plastic spaghetti when prints go wrong.

tluyben2 7y ago
But for paper printers you had no alternatives... So you just focused and printed. You could not take your luggable[0] out in the train and read off screen. Or take it to the couche or sit in your college bench. For 3d printers etc we have alternatives that are fine; we don't actually need them for anything urgent. [0] https://oldcomputers.net/pics/osborne1.jpg https://oldcomputers.net/pics/osborne1.jpg

drran 7y ago

See https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2019/10/biggest-fastest-3d-printer-is-future-of-manufacturing/ https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2019/10/biggest-fastes...