I think the bigger point though, is that even if it did totally destroy retail, retail just isn't a very big part of the U.S. economy: 6% of GDP. And some of th

I think the bigger point though, is that even if it did totally destroy retail, retail just isn't a very big part of the U.S. economy: 6% of GDP. And some of that is not even selling physical goods to begin with: Amazon selling Kindle books is part of the retail sector. Manufacturing is bigger, but still not huge: ~12% of the economy. And manufacturing of things that end up in consumer homes and therefore potentially subject to people saying "screw this, I'll make it myself" is a relatively small fraction of that. So while I think 3d printing is interesting, I don't think it's going to result in the end of the the existence of corporations as everyone stops doing business with them and DIY's their every need, as this article seems to envision.