There's a lot of hype surrounding 3D printing, but not a lot of it is backed by reality

Nov 12, 2013 20:26 GMT  ·  By

3D printing is great, as long as you believe the hype. But as soon as you get involved, you start meeting hurdles. The more you try, the harder it gets.

Obviously, people do create wonderful stuff with their 3D printers, but a lot more are struggling and even the ones who don't put a lot of hours and had a lot of failures to get to that point.

The fact is, at its current state, desktop 3D printing is only suited for dedicated hobbyists with a lot of time, a lot of passion and not a lot of expectations.

But that's not what you'll hear most of the time; instead you'll get wild stories about how everyone will have a 3D printer on their desktop within a few years and how they'll just make everything they need then and there rather than go to the store.

The reality though doesn't look like that. 3D printing is nowhere near that stage and, frankly, may never reach it. Just having the tools to "make everything" is not enough to get people to do it, even if it's incredibly easy.

More likely, it will only be a few people who will use 3D printers on a regular basis, when they are reliable and accurate enough for everyday use, just like only a few people maintain blogs these days, to use a simple comparison.

3D printing industry commentator Joris Peels gave a very interesting talk at the TCT Show + Personalize 2013 talking about the wide differences between the reality of 3D printing and the story that's being told in the mainstream media and that's being perpetuated by most 3D printing enthusiasts.

Peels doesn't pull any punches in criticizing the industry for creating wildly unrealistic expectations and sustaining a hype that is not based on much fact.