3D Printing, How Long till The Revolution (Infograph)

[Larry]

Here is another infograph I have stumbled upon, which really dives into just how far along the exponential curve we are in terms of people buying 3D printers. The infograph compares the growth of the PC market from 1972-present to where we are within the 3D printing market curve. Very interesting, and really shows how how much the market could really grow. Do you think that by 2040 everyone in the US will have a 3D printer just like practically everyone in the US has a PC today? Will it take that long?

[old man emu]

I think that the difference between the take-up of PCs and the take-up of 3D printers by the average consumer will be that you could not go into a shop and buy software back in the 80s like you can go on line and buy stl files now for 3D printers. This factor could speed the take-up.

However, PCs in the home have a vastly greater number of functions than the single function 3D printer. What I mean is, PCs in the home are used for communication (emails, Facebook, Special Interest forums), education ( wordprocessing for class assignments), gaming, art, data storage etc, etc. I can't see many sons and daughters holed up in their bedrooms making 3D prints for hours on end as they do with PCs, iEverythings and such.

In regard to the Infograph: this is a well done presentation. I wonder what rock the people doing the survey were hiding under to only get 350 respondents to their survey. That number is not considered sufficient to produce reasonable survey results. The usual minimum number is around 600 to 750.

Old Man Emu

[Teran]

Great info, my opinion is that a technological advancement can't be directly transposed from one period to another without any changes. We are in a new century, things happen and go mainstream faster and faster!

[squadus]

Very helpful insight into the current demographics of 3D printing! Great infographic

[ajperez]

Thank you for sharing this. Insightful and very clear (and Leno in there is just funny). I think it will be more like 2025 than 2040 but widespread adoption will happen for sure.
What is the source of the infographic?

I follow food 3D printing at @foodfabbing

[Lindros_bigE]

I think 3D printing will never be popular with those people that are currently in the 35+ age range. However, I think that those ages 20 and younger will be the ones to make 3D printing extremely popular in the future. It's going to be hard to convince 35+'ers to go out and buy a 3D printer, wherease those 20 and under will be exposed to them in school, and work, now and in the future.

[Hall_of_Famer]

I really don't think you can classify 3D printing in the same group as PCs. It really a whole different monster. It will be a very long time before everyone has a use and is willing to use 3D printers. PCs became very useful to just about everyone as soon as they were competent enough to run a word processor.