It's an interesting topic. We've seen a lot of printers already in the race to the bottom that compromised design and engineering for saving a few bucks. The QUBD One Up, the Makibox, Pirate3D, in some cases its killed the companies too. That being said, in some cases, owners of these flawed machines have taken the time to learn, and to modify/correct their printers, and by doing so, they've become members of many communities such as ours. On the other hand, there's an equal amount of users who just want a printer 'that prints out of the box' and no doubt, our race to the bottom in pricing/quality has caused a lot of turmoil.

That being said, I think there exists a low, middle and high end market for the consumer right now, and will continue to do so. We're printers such as the Printrbot Play, XZY Davinci and a few others which are bringing a fairly capable printer to consumers on the low end. They might not be feature rich, and some rely on chipped filament, but they represent a good base entry into the market.

The middle of the market, I think is populated by printers such as the Printrbot Simple, Printrbot Plus, Robo3D, Various Prusa i3s and the infamous Makerbot Replicator clones, Good solid printers that offer features and reliability without breaking the bank, and perhaps the largest segment of the consumer market right now.

It's the prosumer market that i think is posied to, if not hasn't already taken off. Printers such as the Ultimaker, Type A Machines, SeeMeCNC, Lulzbot, Felix, and others, printers in the 1500-3000 range that is really taking off. It represents a usually feature laden printer that is still accessible to the average consumer/small business. I'd argue that we are seeing more higher end machines, and the popularity of higher end machines explode over that of cheaper machines.

I think with cheaper, better quality printers that we're seeing now, over that of what we used to have, is going to really drive the mid range, and high end markets. They serve as a great introduction to the market, and a great stepping stone to a larger more feature rich printer, so I guess both end of the markets will thrive