Right now, the desktop 3D printing technology is about where the Personal Computer industry was in about 1978. There are a raft of new companies and machines to chose from, but it is still very much a hobbyist item. There is little out there in terms of existing designs that you can leverage off of, so it is still very much driven by individuals who are skilled in various areas. (CAD, materials, machining).
This article alludes to the significant difference between 3D printing and where the PC technology was in 1978 (or Internet technology circa 1995) and that is that the 3D printing market is using existing technologies. While the PC market needed to wait for technologies to be developed, such as greater than 640K memory, the >1MHz processor, or 16 bit addressing, the 3D market isn’t really waiting for any technology breakthrough. The technology exists. It has only been an artificial limitation brought on by companies not licensing their technologies for a reasonable cost.
