The Inevitable Obj Store

After re-reading Bradshaw, Bowyer and Haufe's paper "The Intellectual Property Implications of Low-Cost 3D Printing", we've been considering where this personal manufacturing space is heading. In the paper, the tangled intellectual property rights scenarios they described involved personal manufacturing of some sort. It occurred to us that at the end of the day, most manufactured consumer objects are used by a person, directly or indirectly. Why else would they exist? Consumer objects are ultimately for personal use.

 

In the distant future when personal manufacturing capabilities become much more widespread due to more advanced capabilities and ease of use, people have the potential to become the manufacturers of the objects they use. But what does that imply? The ability to simply scan objects, make them yourself and be protected via "personal use" laws challenges current concepts of commercial manufacturing. The previously "commercial" objects found in stores would be replaced by "personal use" objects. Why would you be a manufacturer of consumer goods if the essence of your products could be quickly reproduced by everyone "for personal use"? Perhaps there will always be some aspects of manufacturing that won't appear in personal manufacturing stations (such as high-density electronics, unusual materials, etc.), but many objects don't involve those. 

 

Those manufacturers would have to change their approach, much like other industries have transformed over the past decade. The answer might be App Stores for objects: an easy-to-use, touch-a-button store for objects. But it won't be objects you'll buy. Instead you will receive the design, which you will use to manufacture the item yourself. 

 

We can see the beginnings of this manufacturing concept in the business models of Ponoko and Shapeways, but the technology, designs and even knowledge of this capability are simply not there yet. In coming years when the pieces are "ripe", a future Steve Jobs will put it together into a breakthrough system that everyone can use. 

 

Comments

[Oliver]

When we talk about 3d printing, we talk a lot about "intellectual property" (IP). At the same time, we say that it's not yet a problem but it will be in the (not so) distant future. So basically, we assume that IP will be a problem in that future.

But IP is a problem today with illegal downloads and I'm not so sure it will be in that future we talk about. It's like those futuristic projections of the 1950s. They assumed it would be same as 1950 but just somewhat more "modern." I'd say by the time we have those printers, we have intellectual property rights figured out one way or another.

There is a much larger problem with 3d printing which you covered once but didn't elaborate much: printing weapons. 3d printing will inevitably give everyone simple access to all kinds of weapons and I don't see any way for a government to restrict that other than to ban 3d printing completely. Because what happens when every child can print their own gun?

Let's even go one step further. People are already experimenting with molecular printers. What if a printer like that becomes mainstream? Maybe initially to print your own food but there will certainly be hackers who will print their own viruses or poisons. (MacAfee will have a whole new area to cover here.) You wouldn't even have to be a hacker. You'd just have to find the right places to download the models. So the question is: What if everybody possesses the ability to wipe out entire cities or the world? How do we deal with that?