You ever hear of Alphagraphics? Copy shop, serve your printing and publishing needs. They used to be a massive company. Almost as ubiquitous as 7-11. Now they’re down to 260 locations, not dead entirely, but a fraction of what they once were. Do you know why? The death of Alphagraphics is probably sitting on your desk. Laser printers at home, high functioning MFPs in the office. Heck high functioning MFPs at home. Once we got the ability to do what we needed AG for at home we didn’t need them anymore. And soon you’re going to have a 3D printer on your desk next to your paper printer. You’re not going to be buying custom shoes anywhere, you’re going to PRINT them, at home.
There will be a market for custom stuff, but you’ll be buying the design to tweak and send to your computer. Like fancy Word templates and fonts.
Yup. Heard of alphagraphics. They’ve been around for almost 50 years. About as long as cassette tapes and VHS movies. We don’t much use those anymore, either. Something new, better, and more profitable came along to replace them.
Such will be the way with 3D printing. So the economy will shift to design and delivery of specialized raw materials. Folks who used to slog away in factories will be doing other work. Although probably less work. And their quality of life will be orders of magnitude better than 1if they had lived 00 years ago.