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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needful_Things http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needful_Things I see the future of 3d printing as the golden era of the service indust
by columbo 14y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needful_Things http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needful_Things
I see the future of 3d printing as the golden era of the service industry.
I want a semi-portable laptop with a mechanical keyboard and e-ink display. This would be my ideal rugged travel laptop for doing work. I really like how e-ink looks when I write code and I like the clickity-clackity of my mechanical keyboard. But I don't want this to be some hodge-podge mixture of almost-fitting components. It should open and shut like a car door, not a cardboard box.
I also have a strange clothing size, everyone does for that matter. Maybe I'm a 1/4 inch between the sizes. My shoes never fit correctly and my hats are either too tight or too loose.
I also want to design my house in a specific way. Right now my bookshelves end a foot before the wall when I would really like them flush. The same for my couch, coffee table and television.
I also want something to hold all of my daughter's drawings, a nice ornate book with her name engraved on it, maybe I'll even pay someone to take some of her drawings and carve them into the book itself.
How many wants do people have that can be serviced when you are willing to take someone with talent (a 3d designer) and a universal making machine? My dream e-ink laptop is worth $2000 to me, the parts are probably in the ballpark of $250, that leaves a nice profit for the designer. My little book for my daughters drawings would be worth a few hundred.
If all you can do is print out forks the maximum amount of money you can buy is related specifically to the number of forks you can sell. However, if you can build the random things that people want that they cannot find in stores, well you'll have a very sustainable business on your hands.
- smokel 14y agoA downside of customizing products is that you have to think about and describe what you actually want. Personally, I would prefer somewhat less freedom of choice, and more free time :) An interesting read might be "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz (2004).
- rogerbinns 14y agoYou are assuming customisation remains static. One solution I can think of is a site (eg bestforks.com) that has 2 fork choices - you pick one and you are done. (The web means that you can show different catalogues to each user.) Another solution is that they figure out the customisations automatically. For example stand in your room (eg kitchen) and take panoramic photo/video. Based on that it is possible to figure out appropriate colours, sizes and other design criteria (eg sleek/simple versus ornate). Again it can offer you one or two right choices. Yet another brings people back into the process. You have a "design/customisation consultant" and they make the choices/customisation for you.
- andrewflnr 14y agoYour comments about furniture got me thinking: it's going to be hard to build furniture in a home-sized printer. How practical would it be to print hundreds of manageably-sized plastic parts that could be fit into a shelf or couch or something? I know there's research being done on this.
- jivatmanx 14y agoNot hard, ask IKEA.
- stan_rogers 14y agoYour shelving can be easily built by a competent craftsman using currently-available tools and materials in little time. (And you can probably do it yourself if you're not a total klutz—as, admittedly, some of us are—and can handle a four-hour New Yankee Workshop marathon.) There are places where you can't swing a cat without hitting an artisan bookbinder, and Roland (among others) have been making desktop CNC engraving machines for a very long time now. That leaves only your laptop, as far as I can see.