Something that can sit between the user and the machine… a cross between Lego and Spore… but I think it needs to do more than create toys with no moving parts.

The killer-apps of software were often to do with communication – that was the driver of 2D printing… we were already using paper as a communication medium – so much that entire forests fell for it… and the thing with communication is that the output tends to be unique to the individual, and there tends to be quite a lot of it.

We've had thousands of years of practice at this. 3D communication? It's a lot more subtle because there is a textual/phonetic link… and coming from the other direction is the fact that we've had a hundred years at least of conditioning towards thinking that a physical product is identical to its mass-produced siblings… to the extent that this has become an indicator of quality. I mean look at supermarket tomatoes… they're identical. The ones that are slightly different are turned into puree… to hide their individuality.

I think possibly the change (if it happens at all) will be a generational one. The kids will start doing something, that the grown-ups simply don't understand.

Very well said. I think you are generally right. At this point mass customization is more novelty than real replacement for mass production. That said I think the major limitation is the lack of entrepreneurs who understand the potential rather than the potential of the machines and processes. Jewelry is a $60B business and uses custom manufacturing technology already, but it took until 2007 for Paragon Lake to form and address this massive market opportunity. Who knows how they will fare, but it is an example of an entrepreneur tackling an undeserved market. I think there are a lot of vertical markets that could be addressed in a similar fashion.

You are right that a lot of the talk about customization is just hype, blog fodder enabled by services like Ponoko and Shapeways. That hype also holds the key to the killer app as well. People like stuff. A great many people like making stuff. There are over 1MM CriCut paper cutters in homes across the world bearing that fact out. The missing piece is software that helps people with taste, but little training create. This is partly a technical challenge, but more one of product definition. I have no doubt that when ZCorp printers are roughly the same price as desktops that they kids will be printing World of WarCraft avatars at home. I'm also fairly certain we will have large companies built around customization before that time.

… which is quite a lot I suppose… but it feels like fannying about.

I still have this indelible impression that a major problem here is that we simply can't think of anything to make that we couldn't just as easily buy off-the-shelf-somewhere.

I'm from a generation of kids who's clothes were all made by their mothers… not so long ago I guess, but I get the distinct feeling that kids today would rather die than wear something that isn't a brand.. Although yer trend-watchers and whatnot reckon mass-customisation is on the rise, I'd say it's actually falling… if you take a 40+ year perspective.

I think what is happening though is that the internet has created an attention economy… and a really good way to get attention is to “do something”… and the fact that there are such a lot of blogs geared to echo-chamber stuff that “gets done” possibly, I suspect, makes it look more than it actually is.

I'm still looking for a killer-app I guess. 2D printers had a killer-app already built into them… 3D I'm not so sure.

So um… I'm quite interested in what people actually make.

Cool stuff.