The author is missing is actual knowledge of how the manufacturing process works for maker products. Because of that, he or she is left making an assumption that the majority of products will be poor quality - when Tindie actually proves the opposite. The majority of our products are at the highest quality, and that is because of the accessibility of modern manufacturing.
That is why the maker revolution is powerful. One maker can make a product, design it, manufacture it, and sell it all from their garage.
Plans for 3D printing are not only copyrightable, they are subject to patent law. That, and the potential for creation of contraband with 3D printers may lead to online clearing houses for designs that you make and print at home, or strict legislation controlling the use of home printers and sale of items from them.
Beyond that, it is likely that there will be a secondary effect. Right now, you can make just about any item you want to in your wood shop, hobby shop or on your kitchen table, and use it at home or sell it to neighbors or friends. 3D printers may bring much more legal scrutiny to things that pass under the radar as craft today even if printers aren't used.
I want a better future than that, so I hope that people take the initiative to support early safe harbor legislation and exemptions for home projects.
I expect that the reaction of the Manufacturing industry's reaction to small-scale Makers will parallel the Recording/Movie industry to file-sharing, as the situations are similar in many regards.
It's very likely to happen, and it'll suck, but like you said, hopefully we get legislation through in time to protect some of the small Makers so they don't get sued into oblivion by the future-RIAA.
The Maker Revolution is about being able to provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain. It's about the kind of material freedom you might have if your neighborhood hardware store, or even your household fab in the garage can make all the goods for your basic needs, and then some.
> The Maker Revolution is about being able to provide for your needs without depending on a global supply chain.
> It's about the kind of material freedom you might have if your neighborhood hardware store, or even your household fab in the garage can make all the goods for your basic needs, and then some.
This is definitely the case, as most of what maker robots are creating now fit this category. With good enough tech, hardware stores, Wal-Mart, and other sellers of mass produced, low complexity items will go out of business, or at least be more much niche then they are now.
I've written on this recently: http://www.nickpinkston.com/2013/01/some-thoughts-on-digital...
However, I think it is worth developing these technologies with that in mind. The landscape may change faster than we think.
So I don't think it is "idealist" in the sense that, "well, in the real world, this just isn't practical or possible."
The next lower level of wealth will be the digital rights owners of commodity items. The rights owner of 'Shovel' will start a dynasty that will last for hundreds of years. They could potentially be powerful enough to extend copyright laws forever so that they continue to collect rent on the shovel.
Thinking in those terms, we cannot actually discount the role that digital rights management plays. What makes DRM unfair and oppressive has a bit to do with who holds enforcement powers. If the seller also manages the DRM servers, then it holds all the power and can do whatever it wants. If the seller disappears, your access disappears.
One interesting around that is having a third-party rights management. Something like using Bitcoin contracts: http://codinginmysleep.com/exotic-transaction-types-with-bit...
In their example, you would have bitcoin signed three way: a seller, a buyer, and a mutually-agreed-upon arbitrator. Two sides of a party can complete the transaction. If both seller and buyer agrees, then the bitcoin's ownership transfers over. If there is a disagreement, they can talk to the arbitrator.
The article also talks about other examples, for example, using technology like Bitcoin to sign a loan agreement on a car with the car as a collateral. As long as the owner is making payments for the length of the loan, the car is accessible. When the payments are in arrears, the car is not repossessed; it is locked out remotely. It will be unlocked automatically by digital contract when payment resumes. It also means you can digitally sign over the contract to someone else -- effectively, selling to someone else the rights to use the car if they can get the payments back up and running again.
Something like that would work with digital goods. I can say, hold a contract specified in a Bitcoin-like token to a book. I have the right to loan it out the book to any number of people, but I can only loan it out once. If I loan it, I register via the same p2p mechanism that such a person has the right to read it. When I want it back, I can get the book back, or have the access rights automatically expire.
It doesn't keep pirates from it. If you can read the book, you have access to the raw data, and you can pirate it. Like any social agreements, it depends on that most people will abide by this. It's an iteration on the kind of strong property laws that allows entrepreneurialism to flourish in America.
I can have something similar in a world of powerful microfabs. I purchase manufacturing rights of a design, and it is registered publicly via a p2p mechanism that is not controlled by any private interest. If I purchased the right to manufacturing 100 units, I can split it off and sell or transfer 50 manufacturing rights to someone else. If I wanted to make derivative work, I'd get a separate derivative works license, also registered via a p2p contract system.
Further, I would essentially be paying the designer the perceived value of the good, while decoupling that with the material cost to manufacture such a good. I can choose to purchase additional raw material to feed into the microfab, or I can choose to recycle something I want to get rid of, break it down into its component parts, and make this new thing that I want.
And if I didn't want to pay the perceived value, I find or develop an Open Source version.
Your comments about "A new Carnegie in a global economy" -- that is the premise for Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age. Personally, I think it is far more interesting not to control and be the sole supplier of the raw substance. Why do you want to control it? To be wealthy and powerful. Why do you want to be wealthy and powerful? That gets into some really interesting discussions.
Hmm... reminds me of a discussion (@Stross' blog) about how many people were needed in a society, to support a technological civilization. Stross argued we would need many millions of people.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/07/insuffic...
(Of course, lots of specialised services can be replaced with less efficient generic ones, but even a minimum of one million people have severe implications for a Mars colony.)
Edit: Clarity
Food. Water. Shelter. Air.
Existential needs:
Love, affection, contentment, happiness, connection.
Technology can address the basic needs and can never address existential needs.
Everything else are wants. Wants are endless since they attempt to address existential needs but never actually satisfy them. In that sense, Stross is correct. There will always be more wants than can be supported by any given population size of society; but needs can be supported.
I don't think they know what haute couture means. The maker bot is about localized mass production, not something made specifically for one person. And clothing has always been a maker activity - you can go buy a sewing machine (and pretty advanced ones at that) right this second.
However, it's far from any kind of industrial revolution. It's also important to point out that rapid prototyping has been a standard tool in most manufacturing disciplines for at least the 20 years I've been an engineer.
Another encouraging side-effect of the Maker discussion is that the new consensus about the advantages of local manufacturing. We've been complaining to our bosses about the loss of manufacturing capability not only because our jobs are going overseas but also because the local knowledge about design-for-manufacturability and the other DFx's are eroding.
When I started my current job we had assembly lines, machine shops, reliability and regulatory labs and a large force of highly skilled technicians. Now it's almost all engineers and the most we can hope for is to build the first 10 prototypes of anything we design.
The "Maker" induced renewed interest in rapid prototyping has caused a subtle shift in the minds of mid and upper management about how far to take local manufacturing before going to CMs in China.
(I think matter compilers are going to far, and we'll probably use standardized recyclable lego-like pieces rather than atoms but the idea is basically sound).
Maybe the author is thinking of the next few years and you're thinking about the next few decades.
To be fair, look... I'm left-handed. I'd be pretty excited about a new kind of smear-proof marker that didn't leave my hand and the drawing surface looking like unintentional abstract art if I wasn't careful.
Of course middle eastern folks have done this forever so its not a 'new' thing in any sense of the word.
Fountain pens are another problem area. You have to learn to write without "pushing" the pen. More info here: http://www.nibs.com/Left-hand%20writers.htm --combine that with fast-drying ink and things aren't so bad.
It may be no Stradivarius, but it's a start on 3D printing musical instruments: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-11/the-worlds-f...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15926864 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2067981/Resea...
So we do have 3d models of Stradivarius violins, plus computer cut replicas. And on top of that, in blind tests, violinists preferred modern violins anyway.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jan/02/how-many-notes-v...
http://www.assaultweb.net/Forums/showthread.php?t=142405
"AR-15 30rd Magazine Dowloadable CAD Files"
Edit: Maybe I've been reading too much Charles Stross:
"Mind you, not everything that comes out of a rapid prototyper is good. Here's the Magpul FMG-9 prototype: and here's some more. Is it a flashlight? Is it a submachine gun? Who knows? Here's another baroque weapon that probably started life on a rapid prototyping machine. If reprap-like machines with strong materials turn out to be cheap and easy, then never mind licensing handguns — we're going to have a problem with home-made crew-served weapons. (Reminder: yr. hmbl. crspndnt. lives in a country where, for better or worse, possession of a pistol by anyone who's not in the police or military carries a mandatory 5-year minimum prison sentence. The implications of rapid prototyping machines for this sort of legislative environment probably parallel the effects of peer to peer networking on music industry cartels.)"
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2008/06/the_futu...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2013/01/16/what-obama...
"If reprap-like machines with strong materials turn out to be cheap and easy, then never mind licensing handguns — we're going to have a problem with home-made crew-served weapons." - Charles Stross
The drivers of new technology aren't always wholesome.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/ny-congressman-i...
This being HN I'll probably get stoned for this reddit-like comment. So be it.
