That was funny, an advertisement for a 3D printing service where the call to action is "this is going to suck so don't buy it." Well it wasn't really that exactly, the argument is the same though, and the conclusion is inescapable.

Our author doesn't really "hate" 3D printing, he is setting up his pitch, by "hating" on aspects of 3D printing that make it poorly suited to mass market adoption, except he doesn't actually know why these things are hard, he writes as if someone gave him a laundry list of things that they didn't like about 3D printing and he's ready to pitch a "solution" which doesn't have those "bad things" associated with it.

Ok, so the problem with this pitch to a modestly sophisticated audience is that pretty much everyone who knows anything about 3D printing knows that the biggest problem facing 3D printing is not that it doesn't have a vending machine business model. Further, if someone walked up and proposed a vending machine model, a reasonably astute person would say this:

It takes 3 - 6 hours to 'print' any reasonably complex shape. Lets say you had a web api to Thingiverse[1] and you could say "print this on the vending machine down stairs." you would then have to wait several hours before you could get your part. If someone else got their first it may be all day, worse it might be that your part is in the queue and won't get printed until a week from Tuesday. Even worse, the chance of a good outcome is not good, I would doubt if it were better than 66%. Probably a 1 in 3 chance something about the print will go wrong and you'll come by in a week and your part is crap. And even if you have a "this is crap do it again" button, does the machine stop what its doing and spend the next 3 hrs printing you another? Even if this shifts the completion of the other things in its queue?

Basically unattended 3D printing is not possible at this stage. It will be at some point but for now it isn't. That means you have a shop somewhere and they have real people who start your print and make sure it comes out fine. They cost money, real money. If your scheme doesn't cover their salary then its not a scheme, its a dream.

3D printing is going to change the world, in a decade. That is how long it takes to change even a fraction of the pipeline of goods. Sure in various niche markets its changing them now, but printing kiosks? 10 maybe 20 years.

I understand the pain point though. If you look back you see all those people who wanted to use a computer for something in the 70's and they couldn't because they weren't engineers and didn't want to spend the time learning to program. It got a bit better (but very expensive) in the 80's and it wasn't until the 90's when people even considered owning two computers. These migrations are part time, part adaptation. It takes folks time for adapt the technology into their lifestyle. 3D printing is the same way. If you take the time to learn how to run one of these machines you can do your own 3D printing and it is hecka cool. You are donating your own time for 'free' into the cause with a bunch of other people who are interested. Custom printing labs, sort of like film labs of my youth, will no doubt spring up, do well during the pre-automation growth cycle, and then die out. 3D designers will become a sought after commodity, people who can use the tools to create excellent 3D shapes quickly that can be reliably printed. Hardware manufacturers will grow and evolve, standards will emerge, feature sets will be refined. New materials will be developed that are more suited to this style of construction. All of that is going to take time.

I wish our author luck but he's a bit early for this model.

[1] http://www.thingiverse.com