Social Production

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• The build quality of today's 3D printers (at least the semi-affordable ones) is not quite equivalent to mainstream Chinese manufacturers
• The objects made in China have been professionally designed, tested and safety certified. Are yours? If not, where do you get the right 3D model to print?
• The build chamber of many 3D printers is smaller than the object you want to print. Therefore you must print parts and then assemble them. In some cases, this could be difficult

But let's assume these and other issues are eventually solved. You have a quality printer, a great design and you can rapidly print out your item.

It's still not China.

That's because the unit price of printing items yourself will never approach the low cost levels of Chinese manufacturers. Your printer will be idle for much of the day, while Chinese equipment efficiently spins 24 hours per day, tended by low-cost staff, producing items at extremely low cost. Home printing can never match China on cost.

And that's the tradeoff we're all faced with: Design choice but expensive, or Inexpensive with limited choice. Choose one.

Image Credit: Joi Via Wikipedia under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic

We read Seth Godin's posts often, and recently completed his latest book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?.

In the book Godin proposes that the industrial model that we've lived with for some 250 years is drawing to a close. With painful accuracy, he describes the fruitless struggles and frustrations many people face at work in the factories of today - even if they are information worker factories. He believes it must and is going to change:

Our economy has reached a logical conclusion. The race to make average stuff for average people in huge quantities is almost over. We're hitting an asymptote, a natural ceiling for how cheaply and how fast we can deliver uninspired work.

But what does the new economy look like? Godin sums it up thusly:

Shipping an idea went from taking a month by boat to a few days by plane to overnight by Federal Express to a few minutes by fax to a moment by email to instantaneously by Twitter. Now what? Will it arrive yesterday?

So, what's left to make - to give - art. What's left is the generosity and humanity worth paying for.

In other words, the days of commoditization are over and people will increasingly seek uniqueness, because it's not just about the money or efficiency. 21st century technology will make it possible, including one of the important technologies: 3D printing. Make exactly what you want, anytime.

Via Seth Godin's Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

… "3D printing" techniques, in which solid objects can be constructed automatically from computer models, will enable buildings to be erected in a matter of hours.

the old chestnuts of ‘high-tech will save us’ and ‘innovation will reign supreme’ are starting to look suspiciously worn out. Increasingly, the starting-point of the economy of the future looks like a perfect storm, one in which the most fundamental truths of business need to be questioned. 

will be defined by a move away from corporations prescribing the framework within which consumption occurs, a move where control over communication can no longer be upheld and where control over production moves much closer to end consumers. 

The real story is that technology and society are developing together in a way which makes old notions of control and lock-in effects outdated. Instead, we’re seeing how technologies that are now seen as marginal and/or hypothetical – things such as fabbing, 3D-printing, synthetic biology, ubiquitous computing and so on – are pointing to a future in which the quest for sustainability and advanced technology have together created a situation where the old industrial model of mass production for mass consumption has given way to something far more decentralized and thus less easy to control.