Don't get me wrong - I love 3D printing! I use it myself to make enclosures for electronics projects, or to replace parts that have broken on my old sailboat, which happens often. Notably, I don't turn to my business to injection mold these parts, because it makes no sense to make a mold for one part! Without 3D printing, I'd probably have someone mill custom parts, which is a lot more expensive.
But I'm a realist. Look at the total poundage of all resin sales to the 3D print market. It would be generous to call it a rounding error in comparison to conventional resin sales. People like you or me are not the norm. The market for conventionally produced high volume parts is enormous compared to hobbyists 3D printing stuff at home.
That's because most people consume the same small set of products repeatedly, and they care about cost, and some of my machines produce at a rate of ten parts per second with part weights 90% less than what's feasible with 3D printing. It's just the way markets work: most volume is accounted for in a small percentage of products, and engineers will always be able to get much more efficiency out of a specialized machine designed for a small number of high volume items than a general purpose machine that can produce anything.
Of course, no argument there. But the fact that printing presses produce most of the world's printed paper doesn't mean inkjet isn't useful.
I guess it depends on how "plug and play" printers can become, right now they are pretty fiddly. Still, I think their growth is pretty healthy, even if not every home has one.
But I'm a realist. Look at the total poundage of all resin sales to the 3D print market. It would be generous to call it a rounding error in comparison to conventional resin sales. People like you or me are not the norm. The market for conventionally produced high volume parts is enormous compared to hobbyists 3D printing stuff at home.
That's because most people consume the same small set of products repeatedly, and they care about cost, and some of my machines produce at a rate of ten parts per second with part weights 90% less than what's feasible with 3D printing. It's just the way markets work: most volume is accounted for in a small percentage of products, and engineers will always be able to get much more efficiency out of a specialized machine designed for a small number of high volume items than a general purpose machine that can produce anything.