The future of 3D printing

Hi,

I am currently working on dissertation and during this dissertation a lot of questions came up about the future3D printing and its application.
Since I cannot read the minds of all reprappers in this world I created this short survey. It takes only 5 Minutes to answer and it would help a lot to understand the collective opinion on 3D printing.

[maximilianarnold.typeform.com]

I want to thank everyone in advance for helping me out in this matter.

Leave your e-mail at the end of the survey if you want to get the results and want to how the reprappers think about the future of 3D printing.

If you have a complete different perspective on 3D printing, than the survey would suggest, I also appreciate just an answer in this forum.

The results of this survey will be made publicly available for all those who are interested in the outcome this survey.

Cheers

Max

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2015 04:09PM by drop insight.

Answered, took me about 30 seconds.

Very nice survey!

Hi Max
Some thoughts about the survey.
Question 7. I think all answers are correct depending on how far of "the future" is, so what do I answer?
Question 8. Is that one question or two?
Question 11. Strange question, lots of companies use 3D printing. Did I miss something?

Cheers!

Hi SlowFoot,

Question 7 has the idea that all 3 answers kind of exclude each other.

The idea of answer A is that 3D printers become so cheap and versatile in their choice of material and the ability to print complete objects without any assembly, that 3D printing services would be just redundant, because everyone can buy a printer..
People would print objects on daily or weekly basis to fulfil their needs. 3D printers can print then a smartphone or headsets or just a spoon. Just like inkjet printers, that nearly everybody has in their household. Copyshops still exist but, are used only from time to time.
So if you choose answer A you you think there will more personal/consumer 3D printer than there will be 3D printing services.


Answer B says that you think 3D printer will evolve to become very versatile, but the technology is so advanced that the cost of a 3D printer is going to be very high. So instead of buying a very expensive 3D printer people will tend to go to 3d printing services. People will just use a 3D printer from time to time, so every other week. This would then not justify to buy such an expensive machine.

Answer C is the more pessimistic answer, it says that you think 3D printing is a great technology, but it will never become mainstream. "Nerds" like us will improve this technology, but it will stay a technology for prototyping and to realise some personal projects. The mainstream will still buy products that are made by conventionally production and not by a 3d printer.

Question 8 is a single question, it basically asks your opinion on how 3D printing will change future companies. Do you think 3D printing will force companies to change their company philosophy on how they create and produce products? Do you think they will see the possibilities in the 3D printing and instead of manufacturing everything themselves they will focus on designing products and make those designs open source, so that you can print them? How they would then gain money financially is a whole other question.

Question 11 is not a question about, if companies use 3D printing, but will companies start create products that you can print with your printer or a 3D printing service. So they will make the files open source and you can print this product. You will not buy anymore a finished product from that company.

I hope this helped.

If something is not very clear, please keep asking and thank you for completing the survey

Cheers

Max

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2015 02:50PM by drop insight.

Unfortunately up until now only 18 people completed the survey

So now there is "good news everyone" [www.youtube.com]

To get more people in taking the survey, I will raffle 3 Filament spools (750g) from my favourite supplier 3d-print-sam.de/3D-Print-Material
If you win the survey I will contact you by mail and you can choose the material (ABS or PLA), the colour and the diameter.

Personally I found that 3d-print-sam has the best PLA I have ever seen, but that is not the point of this survey.

Please spread the word so that I can have a more statistical accurate result.

For those that already took the survey and left their e-mail to get the survey results, you will be automatically entered into the raffle.
If you left your e-mail but do not wish to partake in the raffle write me a PM and tell me which e-mail you entered in the survey and I will exclude you from the raffle.

For those that took the survey, but did NOT leave a e-mail, but still wish to partake in the raflle, please fill out another survey and write at the end when e-mail form comes:

"DUPLICATE " and then your e-mail address ( for example: " DUPLICATE [email protected]")

I will then put you in the raffle and exclude the data for the analysis.

A big thank already to those that filled out the survey.

Cheers

Max

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2015 03:26PM by drop insight.

I have responded, but found a couple of questions a bit hard to answer. (Predicting the future is always tricky - especially before it happens!)

One day, every home may well have a 3D printer, but for the reasonably foreseeable future, I still see it as a bit of a niche / geek hobby.

Will companies start releasing open-source printable products? Sure - when they work out how to make money from products that they give away and which can be shared freely thousands of times!

Those two questions probably go hand-in-hand: 3D printers need a range of "killer printable household objects" to go mainstream. When some major consumer products start to become home-printable, that will probably start to drive 3D printers into the average household.

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Follow my Mendel Prusa build here: [julianh72.blogspot.com]

As you already mentioned the next couple of years it will stay a geek hobby, but already now a lot of companies use this technology. This is usually a good indicator that this technology could be also made more readily available for consumers.
This was for instance the case with the Computer. I see a lot of parallels of how the Computer came in our home, with how the 3d printer will get into our homes.

How companies make money from open source products is a tricky question. I got already some heat from one person about the word "open source", since this word may not be the appropriate word in this context. I think companies will make the files readily available to the end consumer, but will patent their idea. So for instance you could print the product, but the company would not allow a competitor to produce a finished product. So let say a company designs a lamp put those files online for everyone to print. The company would now hope you buy their build kit (a light bulb and the wiring) to make money. But the lamp will be patented so that a competitor can not "steal" the lamp design and sell a finished product. Because the company patented the lamp and does not allow other people to use the design in a different way than intended, the word open source does not apply. This is however a different form of open source, since the company makes the files available to the 3d printing community and there is no condition that you need to buy the build kit to get files.

You will think now the company could only release the files to you once you buy the build kit. Well I don't think that will be very useful for that company. Look at the Music industry and how they underestimated the internet as a file sharing platform. Files will always travel through the internet and there is nothing much a person or a company can do about it.

So how could companies make money with this futuristic "open source" style approach? Well I will write a whole chapter about that in my survey report. This analysis is heavily dependant on the outcome of the survey.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. It is appreciated.

Thank you to all those that completed survey. I got 85 responses, with which I am quite happy. I will close now the survey link and start analysing the results. You will hear from me soon. Those who came too late but are still interested in the outcome of this survey, write me a small message with your email address and I will send you the report as soon as it is finished.

How can a dissertation be based on other peoples opinions of future events?

This survey is not a dissertation. It will be just a part of a dissertation. To be precise it will be an introduction to a dissertation.
But mostly it is out of self interest I do this. This survey is not a necessity for my dissertation. In the end I am not even sure if it fits into my dissertation, but this is a whole new topic.
These question I asked in the survey came to me during some thought processes and I was curious of what the results may be, so I did this survey.