It's usually referred to as "cutting edge" technology.. because it makes your billfold bleed.
I can remember when the CD burner was first introduced to the public it was priced at $5000.
I paid $2000 for a 9 gig Seagate Barracuda SCSI hard drive in order to capture video. That was back in 1998.
3D printing, in my opinion, is going to be HUGE in terms of changing our society. I've started to refer to it as the 21st century's version of "modern day milling."
Remember “desktop publishing” — brought on by the Apple Macintosh? In 1984, we were saying: “Wow! Everyone can make posters, flyers, and pamphlets! We can even publish a newsletter, if we want! How revolutionary!”
Very few people then could even begin to imagine blogs, social media, Internet radio, YouTube, etc. Now, these new media are slowly, but surely, demolishing all traditional mass media. It really is revolutionary.
IMHO, we haven’t even begun to imagine where 3D printing will take us, in the next few decades.