Why 3D Printing Will Explode to Unimaginable Proportions within 5 years

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The trajectory of 3D printing growth is already steep, however I think it could be much more explosive in nature than even the most optimistic industry insiders believe. At first glance, this would seem to be an awesome sign for companies making consumer based 3D Printers, but not so fast!!

Exponential technological progress is not something unfamiliar to today's tech community. In fact the explosion in Computer processing power, the number of smartphones in the world, etc have all grown on exponential curves. The 3D printing industry is growing at similar rates, but is yet to hit the knee of the exponential curve. This will happen very soon, and at that point, you better be prepared. The RepRap movement is what I think could really make things explode. At current, you can basically 3D print most of the parts to another 3D printer, however the quality of the offspring is not the greatest. in the next 5 years I am willing to bet that Reprap will explode in popularity. Once they figure out how to print our a high quality, easy to assemble printer that almost anyone can use, you will begin to see growth of unimaginable proportions within the consumer based 3D Printing community. At this point the only thing holding the movement back will be the costs of filaments, but there are already several groups working on cheap methods to recycle plastic scraps into 3D printable filament.

By 2020-2024 it would not surprise me to see just as many homes with 3D printers as there are with television sets. If this does happen, the world economy will be in for a major shift.

An Example of a RepRap Printer:

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I think Open Source really has helped RepRap become a cheap affordable printer. I hope someone decides to open source other large and other huge 3D Printers. Imagine being able to have homeless people in 3rd world countries learn to build 3D Printers capable of building homes. Imagine if those printers could create concrete off of the native soil. The possibilities are endless, and it could be a big part in solving the worlds poverty.