3D printing escaped the maker bubble
3DP War Journal #87
For the first 15 years, hobbyist 3D printing was an extreme sport for the few.
The RepRap project (and the unjustly almost forgotten Fab@Home) pushed 3D printing technology to heights previously out of reach. It popularized it among people who were not employees of industrial R&D departments, research labs, or other highly specialized fields.
It was a project whose idea was painfully simple and at the same time almost messianic: a 3D printer capable of printing parts for itself.
Open source, open hardware, community, fellowship, revolution.
Ordinary people assembled machines from threaded metal rods and plywood. They calibrated the bed for half an hour before every print. They debugged firmware. They replaced thermistors.
They spoke about retraction and flow rate with the reverence others reserve for wine or car engines.
Except they weren’t really “ordinary people.” They were makers. Early adopters. And to some extent - fanatics.
But - it must be emphasised - without them there would be nothing.
They built the foundation. They wrote the code. They tested thousands of parameter combinations. They smashed into the wall with their heads so others could later walk through a door.
Yet they were also closed within their own bubble. For a long time, 3D printing was a conversation among the initiated. If you didn’t know what Marlin was, if you didn’t understand why nylon hates moisture, if you couldn’t replace a nozzle yourself - then you simply weren’t one of them.
Your 3D printer doesn’t work? That’s because you’re a poor operator. A 3D printer is only as good as its operator!
That was the explanation for 90% of the problems beginners reported.
The technology was a gatekeeper. And it filtered out very effectively anyone unwilling to pass through it.
But then things changed.
Not suddenly. But steadily. Step by step, model by model. One wave of users after another.
Printers stopped requiring the knowledge of an electrician and a programmer at the same time. Interfaces became human. Slicers became readable. First layers became always good.
Eventually it turned out that a 3D printer could be like a Thermomix or a coffee machine. You load, you press, you get. You don’t need to understand how the heater works or why steam pressure matters. It just works.
And then entirely new users of 3D printers appeared.
Not makers. Users.
People with different professions, different lives, different priorities. Designers, teachers, parents, hobbyists, craftspeople, creators. People who need a 3D printer not to improve the machine itself, but to use it to make things they couldn’t make before. Or things you can’t buy in any store. Or things that exist only in their heads and would remain there forever without a printer.
This shift is what drives the market today. Not another hotend iteration. Not a new extruder. Not a better motherboard. People with ideas who, for the first time in their lives, have a tool capable of realizing them.
Last week, on the Bambu Lab blog, I published an article presenting the story of one such creator - Matthew Kimbrough, better known on MakerWorld as MaKim. I encourage you to read it - a fascinating person creating remarkable projects.
And even earlier, in January, I published the story of Eric Brunner, an artist-maker living with multiple sclerosis, for whom 3D printing brought new energy and helped him grow as a creator.
These people are symbols of change.
The numbers are relentless. The home 3D printing market is growing at a pace that just a few years ago would have been considered science fiction.
And it’s not growing because makers are buying their fourth and fifth printers. It’s growing because hundreds of thousands of new people are buying their first.
People who have never visited a RepRap forum. Who don’t know what G-code or firmware is. And frankly, they don’t need to.
Yes, my friends - we have left the bubble. We have entered the real world.
But this is only the beginning.
Bre Pettis and Avi Reichental heralded this a decade years ago. Around 2010–2013 they said loudly and with conviction that the 3D printer would become a household device, that it would be in every home like a refrigerator or a washing machine, that it would change how we consume objects.
But they didn’t deliver. It was too early.
The technology wasn’t ready, the ecosystem didn’t exist, the barriers to entry were too high. The vision was right; the timing wasn’t.
But those predictions didn’t disappear. They’re just waiting.
As I wrote before (and some of you argued loudly against it), by 2030 what they predicted will happen.
I have no doubt about it.
Not because the technology will make another leap (though it will). Not because prices will fall (though they will). But because the user has changed. The profile of the person buying a printer has changed. The reason they buy it has changed.
In the past, you bought a printer to have a printer. Today, you buy it to make something specific.
This shift is fundamental. This is the moment when every technology stops being an enthusiast’s toy and becomes a tool. It happened with personal computers. It happened with smartphones. It will happen with 3D printing.
The consumer revolution ahead of us in the next five years will not be a technological revolution. It will be a cultural one.
People will learn to think about objects differently. Not only as something you buy, but as something you create. Not everyone at once. Not overnight. But it’s enough to look at the trajectory to understand where this is heading.
Matthew Kimbrough and Eric Brunner are the best proof of this. They came from outside. Without hardware knowledge, without CAD experience, without any history in the RepRap community.
But with ideas. And with a tool that, for the first time in history, could answer them.
This is not an exception. This is the new norm.