It would be interesting to see a Hacker News Poll on how much people have and use 2D printers now even, let alone 3D.
It would be great to have access to a good 3D printer at a low price that was convenient at, say a Kinkos or something.
3D printers could well be more like good quality photo printers - something that is better used by lots of people at a shared facility.
Poll: Do you have a 3d printer?
Yes, I already have one.
245 points
I don't have one now but I may buy one.
1767 points
I'll probably never buy one.
891 points
It's hard to say whether that augers well for 3D printers or not. In what must be a big early adoption community only 8% of people have one but that 'maybe' group of 60% is huge.
Who knows, perhaps it will be like having a good workbench and tools. Not very rare, but far from ubiquitous.
There's a lot of people who love printing photos, flyers, etc. at the click of the mouse. We shouldn't demean that - there's a lot of real uses for 2D printing.
The own/rent/outsource question is a big part of the future of digital fabrication. See my article in MAKE:
http://makezine.com/2013/06/24/what-is-the-new-industrial-re...
But Shapeways, like online photo printing services might take a lot of the market when you know exactly what you want or want multiple copies or something.
I'm skeptical that 3D printer ownership or ubiquity is the impediment to their widespread use.