Will 3D Printing Have a Larger Economic Impact Than the Internet?

In Fisher’s book he describes the shift from a Fordist era to the post-Fordist era, explaining the transformation of important characteristics such as production. The shift from an industrial phase to a spirits-of-networks phase meant power was no longer defined by structural class divisions and was instead associated with the characteristic of autonomous nodes and connections with other nodes in the networks. The biggest change was the blurring of boundaries between producers and consumers creating a new category of workers: the prosumers.

A new technology that has the potential to further revolutionize the concept of production is 3D Printing. This technology further blurs the line between consumer and creator, possibly posing a threat to corporations as more people are able to produce their own products. What do you think this means for our economy and our capitalist structure if more people can fulfill their own desires instead of buying these fulfillments from corporations?  Check out this interesting video to see how far 3D printing can go.  A venture capitalist made a statement that 3D printing will have a bigger economic impact than the internet. While this is a bold statement, I do think this technology will force our society to rethink ways of design and production, just like the Internet did. It will be interesting to see what the discourse will be around this technology once it becomes cheaper and more accessible to more people. Since it makes it easier for people to produce products in their home and sell them, this will bring up political issues in creating policies to address copyright issues and regulations that people might be bypassing. Power will be further defined by the network (downloading and sharing 3D models with others on the network to use with their 3D printer). How else does this impact economic, social, and political institutions?