Pay the folks in Bangladesh who actually make the shoes a wage that isn’t effectively slavery. Add a single dollar to the price of those $100 sneakers.
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It’s not impossible to do right now, it’d just be time-consuming.
I’m not at all certain this point is as settled as your comment suggests.
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That’s the awful thing about this, more than his cluelessness. “People someday might be able to raise their living standards, oh the horror”.
No one better show him any post-scarcity science fiction, might give him a heart attack.
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You can already buy fake Yeezy Boost. Don’t need no stinkin’ 3D printer. Just Aliexpress.
PS, holy crap theyre ugly shoes.
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He’s making a very good point, unwittingly. As long as music is sold as an object, the internet is a threat. Likewise, if shoes were made of information, the shoe business would be no more.
On the other hand, there are a lot of people who are willing to pay handsomely for handmade goods. Maybe if that post-scarcity thing becomes real, a whole lot of us will become craftsmen. Doesn’t sound like a bad life, to me.
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You keep saying you got something for me
Something you call love but confess
You’ve been a’messin’ where you shouldn’t ‘ve been a’messin’
And now someone else is getting all your best
Well, these boots are made for printing, and that’s just what we’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna disrupt all over you
You keep lyin’ when you oughta be truthin’
You keep losing when you oughta not bet
You keep samin’ when you oughta be a’changin’
What’s right is right but you ain’t been right yet
Well, these boots are made for printing, and that’s just what we’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna disrupt all over you
You keep playing where you shouldn’t be playing
And you keep thinking that you’ll never get burnt (HAH)
Well, I’ve just found me a brand new box of matches (YEAH)
And what he knows you ain’t had time to learn
Well, these boots are made for printing, and that’s just what we’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna disrupt all over you
and finally: http://these-boots-are-made-for-walking.tumblr.com/
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Wouldn’t you want tweed shoes?
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This really is the opinion of someone who spends way too much time poring over business forecasts for vertical markets, while simultaneously possessing a disarmingly low level of self awareness.
The thing is, 2D consumer grade paper printers are garbage. They’re made cheaply and designed to suck ink and be shitty. They’re the bare minimum.
Typical 3D printers are of much higher quality, are designed to be easy to work with and mod, and generally output a higher quality of product than their 2D counterparts. Because most 3D printers are made in collaboration with the people who actually use them. Instead of engineered by marketing sociopaths.
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One thing Google teaches you is that EVERY pun has already been made by someone else.
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It is likely that, given the fairly tepid efficiency of once-off fabrication compared to mass produced goods, products whose prices are heavily influenced by brand or ‘IP’ protection will be among the first to take a nontrivial hit, with goods priced more in line with their costs of production feeling less pressure.
This doesn’t make his concerns any less self interested(and apparently heedless of the opportunities for creativity among the shod that technology suitable for cloning his pet shoes will also offer); but does make it more likely that the disruption will start with making ‘luxury’ goods not backed by inherent material costs or other unusual difficulties substantially easier to fake(especially in the sort of smallish scale operations that would be likely if ICE enforcement cuts into the 'just buy them from the factory in China across the street from the one making the ‘real’ thing strategy); rather than starting with cost reductions in things that improve living standards.
I can’t say that I’ll be crying too hard for the bonfire of the vanities that will result from easier cloning of branded status goods.
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The “Hey, I could make that!” syndrome.
Yeah, you could, but it will cost more, be crappier, and take up your time. So go to Walmart and just buy it.
In the market that Mr. West cares about, they might actually become a factor: CD and DVD-Rs are pitifully inferior to stamped disks in terms of production cost, speed, and product durability; but it is (comparatively) easy to keep an eye on the world’s limited number of disk pressing facilities, so the production of bootleg music and movies (back when you soiled your hands by buying physical media, in person like some kind of primitive) frequently used them anyway.
3d printers are unlikely to beat cheap shoes on price, or good shoes on quality; but anything that makes short run production easier and faster to tool up probably will find a role in beating shoes sold more or less entirely on trademark or copyright enforcement. Quite possibly in smallish workshops, rather than at home; but rapidly cloning whatever the ‘in’ product of the moment is, ideally in a small enough footprint to evade the authorities, is a problem fairly similar to rapid prototyping; and that’s something of a strength for 3d printers.
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“DURR DURR DURR!” - Kayne West
Since it’s redundant to say I’m so sick of this moron may I offer the classic - CHRIST WHAT AN ASSHOLE
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In one particular southpark episode, Wendy – making a point about false ideals of beauty, and the rampant use of photoshopping and makeup – states that Kim Kardashian is “built like a hobbit”. Kanye has never been more cogent than in responding to this issue:
Kanye addresses Stan and Wendy’s class
Kanye interrupts a speech by the pope
Kanye does a music video
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I don’t think the problem is whether or not he’s right, but really whether or not we try to stop 3D printing because it may disrupt some industries who are currently very profitable.
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