I disagree with the articles conclusion. It does make some good points about costs and how a dedicated tool is better but if we just go back a little in time and look at laser printers and other types of home printing over using a comercial print shop and you see alot of parralels, ink cost being one that still holds with us today, even with `major` players in the feild.

Another way to look at this is people today spend alot of money on craft tools and materials and we even have dedicated shopping channels for such products.

Finaly I think if you look at the cost of lego brick and the respective volme of 3D ink, then I suspect you will see that 3D ink works out very comparable and cheaper in many area's. People spend a lot of money on Lego and with that alone the market for 3D printers has a place. Not saying rip of Lego bricks but that people like to play and create things and whilst Lego is targeted at children it still endures with many a adult.

Initialy with the costs of a good printer that can use robust 3D ink we will see your local printers embacing the new avenue and many other outlets offering a 3D printing service. The home consumer market will grow, costs will drop but. As I said with the initial introduction of laser printers and other printing types, initial they were expensive, but only got better and cheaper and permuated into more purchsing budgets/needs over using your local print shop.

With markets most people will work out the direction and then end up dooming it all as it does not happen as quickly as they can think about it. Markets are funny slow beasts that operate on various timelines and with new technology the initial market is the niche that opens the crack or not into larger markets. I certainly see a larger market given the ever expanding craft market and with the same insight into how laser printers started and ended up at, let alone coloured printing, which was many years ago the work of a dedicated print shop.

ALso worth remembering that industry today has milling machines and flow-jet which will take a solid block of metal and turn it into your defined shape. 3D printing is not metal and with that is targeting different markets and we are a long way from the univeral replicator perception most seem to think 3D printing is. That is a long way off, heck how long has it taken to get the perfect monitor, close but still not there as a ideal. But they sell and with that the ability for somebody to print out a 3D object be it a chess set, replacement part for some broken plastic bit in a product that you can't replace without purching the entire module/section. Many DIY tasks would have a use for such an item, even customised plastic washers, so many usable area's even with todays technology.

So that is why I disagree with the conclusions as they are based upon a ideal with todays limitations impossed and not taking into account printing technology adoption within markets historicaly, let alone the bleed over markets in craft, DIY and many more others will probably be aware of.

For me the acid test is when you can print out a plate, knife and fork and use them to eat with practicaly and saftly as good as disposable cutterly today. Then we have a robust enough technology that consumers will start to embrace if the price is right. I also expect the 3D-ink's will follow inkjet prices, but the printers will carry a margin until the saturation is at the level which enables a large company to make enough margin on the ink over the printers. It will be when all printers end up offering more or less the same functionality at various price points at comparable levels to other manufacturers.