It seems to be a hard concept for many to grasp, but in fact no resource is ever consumed in the sense of entirely vanishing. What we think of as consumption is an act of transformation, so nearly everything is recyclable, able to be transformed into its original state, or into another form for a different use.

When resources are considered scarce, it's a matter of inadequate transformative technology. In spite of all the worry about overpopulation, the planet still has resources more than adequate for billions more humans at a high standard of living, so long as we can continue to improve our ability to manage those resources.

It certainly makes sense to acquire more resources for expansion off planet, and there is no lack of resources to serve that purpose. Asteroids present trillions of tons of new material, and any inhabitable planetary surface (Moon, Mars, so far) has its own vast resource bounty.

While you are deciding between 3D printers and patents, I will be developing patents for my specialized 3D printers.

I have done modestly well by buying my current home and my previous house from the 'white elephant' discard heap. What I could bring to the table that other people could not is 'imagination'. I think that this applies to the future of 3D printers.

Having the capability to create things (let us assume the Star Trek 'replicator' level of capability of printers that Temaklos specifies) does not magically endow 95% of humanity with the imagination or inclination to create their own products. What you 'sell' is your ability to imagine a product that other people would like - like selling a book: The book contains letters and words that are in the common domain, but it has proprietary plots and characters that are copyrighted.

Anyone can stroll up to a replicator and say, "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." but if you want the unit to reproduce a new gourmet dish, you buy the right to that recipe from the chef who created it. Similarly, you can order your shipsuit for free, but if you like the latest fashion that the actress wore on the Holovid, you buy the design from the studio.

What 3D printers add to physical society is what we are currently experiencing with information technology and news: the dissolution of gatekeepers. It used to be that the news you heard/saw/read was filtered through a few major 'gates' - now we have people posting their videos directly on the Net and there is nothing that social censors can do to stop them.

I am looking forward to an increase in the sophistication of 3D printers that allows me to be free from the fetters of 'what people in Paris tell me I am supposed to want'. I can do a much better job imagining my world than they can. And if other people like my ideas, I will be glad to sell them to those people.

Jan

There is a significant amount of time and energy to either find & obtain or create the exact specifications for parts to produce with a 3D printer, assuming of course you can make the part out of plastic. Metals fabrication in the similar approach would be CNC or water jet machines and cost $10s of thousands of dollars, and given the 'horsepower' to operate either, its not likely to be tiny or particularly common in the home, well, forever.

Most of the economy doesn't have anything to do with manufacturing, its probably 10% at best domestically, its not ever going to be more than 10 or 20% of the economy. Most of the population makes its living in the service sector.

So far, you need to have the item in order to copy it. But, as to looking into the future, it is always a toss up. Who knows what the next big scientific breakthrough will be? In the 50's, we predicted a Mars colony by 2016, flying cars, complete nutrition by just swallowing a pill. Computers? Well, maybe in the universities, but what use are they to most people? Hah!

So, what it comes down to is, "You can't have your leftovers and let your neighbor eat it too."

Actually the 3D printer, even today, is not really a problem, patent wise. Nor will it be much of a problem in at least the near future. No one is going to dent any production product with 3D printing. The cost is too high, and the production rate way too slow. However, 3D printers, and CAD programs will let small tech companies and individuals compete better with large producers. They allow one to bring an idea/invention to fruition. This has not been possible without a fairly large expenditure before. They could well be the key to a new wave of invention.
Still, any "printed" item, would be mass produced by more conventional means post testing and acceptance of it's final version.
As for 3D printing displacing industry, I fear it will never be cheaper to print a part, then to mass produce it. There are times it may be worth the cost. Replacement parts that are no longer made! But even then, rather than trying to recreate the part, most would be more than happy to pay a small fee for the print file from the OEM.

I think for a very interesting take on it, or rather the step beyond 3D printing, read "The Diamond Age".

i like your qualifier.."50 years...if we survive that long..."...that is the question...

While 3D printers are really cool, they are expensive - not just to build, but to operate. My son has one and they are finicky and the rolls of plastic aren't cheap. You can get the same thing down at the dollar store that costs 30x that much and nearly a day to 3D print.

I really don't see everything moving to individual printing because mass manufacturing is so efficient and there just isn't a huge need for customized everything in our lives. Right now, the printers inexpensive enough for anyone to own are limited to printing knick-knacks out of plastic. They're great for role-playing games and hobbies, but they don't have the strength needed for many applications. And it isn't like these things can design the circuits necessary for many appliances and such either.

I'm not really worried about this in the next 50 years barring a massive breakthrough in the affordability and availability of large-format printers which can accept a wide variety of input materials - including metals. That's still a long ways away.

The entertainment industry has already produced a dramatic "arc" illustrating just the kind of future Gary North is afraid of. And with good reason. And the name of the franchise involved? Star Trek. In the later period those shows covered, "replicators" were the thing. A "replicator" would be no larger than a microwave oven--or one of those additive factories we call "3D printers" today. You would walk up to one and say, "I want a ham sandwich," and more quickly than you could say the command, you'd get it. You could even ask for a glass of water and specify the temperature.

So what's an inventor to do? Well, I'll tell you what I found objectionable about Star Trek. Those people had no currency. And replicators--from the 3D printer size to the big industrial-sized replicators that produced building materials and such--could literally produce anything on command, even by rearranging matter, energy, and any and all pure substances and mixtures.

I concluded that all inventors worked for the state--be it the United Nations on Earth, its equivalent on another world, or the Federation as a whole. The best inventors worked for Star Fleet and got the best laboratories, the best staff, the best equipment, the best commissaries, the best everything. The inventor working out of his garage? Nothing. No one said a word.

How would you solve the basic problem? Only one way. The inventor would have to sell his idea outright to whatever authority, or whatever company, programmed replicators worldwide. A big, fat lump sum would place that invention into the public domain. Permanently.

And resources? Well, in that looked-for universe, very few things would be non-replicable. The form of platinum, or "latinum," that remained liquid at room temperature would be one. This formed the basis of the Ferengi economy. Which in fact was a travesty of capitalism.

But I have an idea that the end of the franchise left the Federation in bad shape. Just bad enough for a revolution to take place. After fighting the longest, costliest, and bloodiest war in its history, surely the Federation would stagger under a mountain of debt--hidden debt, given the lack of currency, but debt is still debt. Whereas frontier societies would be free and clear--and might even want to get away from replicators, for health reasons. Sooner or later the Federation would impose Townshend-like Acts on its colonies in some of the new frontier areas. And that would eventually provoke repeats of the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Lexington and Concord. And if the Federation still disrespected its inventors as I saw it doing (by watching literally every Star Trek episode of every show that aired), those inventors might join the rebel side. Then watch out!

If you want to know where the materials are, just look up on a cloudless night.

I think your idea of a "replicator" displacing patents will come down to personal use vs using IP for a sale to others.
That said, it seems unlikely to me that any personal device will ever compete with a larger, mass production device to make the same thing. Efficiency in industrial equipment, processes etc will always crush personal equivalents unless distribution costs absolutely dominate.

It's the chicken or the egg conundrum all over again!

Given a reasonable amount of freedom to produce and trade, people via the marketplace will find ways to meet their needs and even thrive. I doubt that patents in their current form will even exist thirty years from now, for reasons stated in the article and also because the process of invention itself will become increasingly automated.