Programmers typically don't have very good intuitions regarding the pace of change in other industries. Quoting myself (http://c1qfxugcgy0.tumblr.com/post/3118

Programmers typically don't have very good intuitions regarding the pace of change in other industries. Quoting myself (http://c1qfxugcgy0.tumblr.com/post/31187427192/the-enduring-tragedy-of-the-robotics-industry-is http://c1qfxugcgy0.tumblr.com/post/31187427192/the-enduring-...): Not every technology follows the price curve of computers— computing is the bizarre outlier. If you had predicted in 1970 that computers would be tens of millions of times cheaper per FLOP in the future, you would be a visionary, but if you predicted that jet airliners would cost $10, fit in your pocket, and fly at Mach 100, then you would be an idiot. Some things are just hard. Not everything gets 10X better per year for decades and decades. Most industries hit hard physical limitations long ago, and are improving either very slowly, or not at all. 3D printing is a particularly bad example of revolutionary change: it was invented by industry insiders, for decades was performed by exorbitantly expensive machines, and is mostly hyped based on the term "3D printing." Actual FDM machines are much less exciting, and aren't terribly useful, commercially.