Escape from the Chicken Coop
The AM chicken coop is comfortable. Familiar. But you got to get out! Why? Because the coop is the place where you die...
Joris Peels is one of the best AM journalists and market analysts in the world. I can’t say he’s the best, because I’m still here too (hehe 😜).
At the end of 2023, he published a series of articles about the condition of the industrial AM sector which, in hindsight, turned out to be prophetic. A few months later, in the summer of 2024, the market collapsed. Joris, Alex Huckstepp, and I were describing it before it became real. But it was Joris who started that uncomfortable, though truthful narrative.
Now Joris is back with another series of bitter pills to swallow, which - just like in 2023 - CEOs of the world’s leading AM companies would probably prefer to ignore.
But ignoring facts will not protect you from them eventually catching up with you.
3DPrint.com has published four articles from Peels’ new series, The Additive Chicken Coop. Debunking, cold, and at times brutally funny.
The series portrays the AM industry as a self-contained system, dependent on a narrow customer base and increasingly incapable of inventing anything new beyond what already exists.
The third part is weird. Joris dedicates it entirely to bananas. Seriously, bananas. But the fourth part ties everything together and is, in my opinion, the most important analysis of the AM industry this year.
Below is my summary and commentary. And at the end is what Joris didn’t write: how to get out of this. How to escape the chicken coop.
The Additive Chicken Coop - the coop that locked itself
Peels begins with the metal 3D printing sector. The first part describes how industrial LPBF systems spent years functioning as million-dollar Petri dishes. Machines where every parameter could be changed, but which were not optimized for producing anything specific. They were bought mainly by universities. For six years, everyone studied Inconel properties. Everyone in their own way. Everyone starting from scratch.
A million-dollar machine. To study something others had already studied the year before. That’s III Era of AM in a nutshell - the same era that was supposed to replace CNC machines and injection molding on factory floors.
In the following sections, Peels moves toward a market observation: the AM industry is obsessed with itself. Constantly looking at its own tools instead of customer problems. Costs are rising, opportunities are shrinking, and companies are entering the same markets with the same machines.
Peels writes about bananas. Literally.
The whole thing revolves around Cavendish bananas, Panama Disease Tropical Race 4, Dole and Chiquita, clones, and monocultures. It feels slightly surreal to read on a 3D printing website, but the meaning becomes clear in the fourth part.
Because that’s where Joris delivers the diagnosis.
The metal AM industry is doing exactly what the global banana industry did: most companies focus on the same sectors - aerospace, defense, medical - offering similar machines and depending on the same funding sources. One regulatory mistake, one high-profile implant incident, one Pentagon budget shift, and the entire market starts wobbling.
Peels reminds readers of the collapse of metal dental printing: everyone was printing the same crowns for the same customers. The market shifted toward zirconia, and companies suddenly discovered they had been standing on very short legs.
On the desktop side, the situation is different, but not better. Everyone is trying to copy Bambu Lab. That’s the only idea.
Well, not entirely. Josef Prusa has another one - ban all Chinese 3D printers so only his company remains. Primitive, but brutally simple.
Peels sees no serious player thinking about anything else: cheaper machines, more durable systems, products designed for completely different applications. Strategic cloning packaged as innovation.
And where are the untouched markets? Specialized services for nuclear energy, maritime infrastructure, subsea industries. No simple CAD platform for children beyond Tinkercad. No complete plastic-to-filament recycling solutions. No platform where you can order large-format metal printing online.
Markets worth billions of dollars. With almost no competition. Nobody is looking there.
Peels’ thesis is simple and unpleasant: the AM industry is running toward a cliff like a herd of lemmings.
Strategic replication and obsession with the same narrow customer groups have turned it into a fragile system. And fragile systems break under the first serious obstacle.
Fine. Joris is right. So what now?
How to escape the chicken coop
Peels delivers the diagnosis. The cure (at least for now) he does not prescribe. So I decided that part is my job.
Software first. That is the only strategy that works long term in AM.
Formlabs survived II Era and III Era of AM in good condition because it built an ecosystem: hardware, firmware, materials, and a closed, optimized workflow all in one.
Bambu Lab built an entire platform, and the printer is merely its interface. MakerWorld is the foundation of user loyalty, not just a website with free models.
Companies controlling only the hardware layer today are in a bad position. Hardware margins are shrinking because Chinese factories can manufacture the same thing faster and cheaper. The real moat is software, data, certifications, and customer trust. That is also the only space where European and American companies still have a chance for long-term advantage.
Joris Peels says something even more important: go where there is no crowd. I wrote exactly the same thing two years ago. It’s exactly what I say during every meeting with my resellers in Central Europe.
Go where nobody expects to see a 3D printer.
Nuclear energy. Maritime. Subsea. Repair of metal energy infrastructure. Markets where trust is currency, margins are different, and entry barriers come from specialized expertise, not just capital. Where one properly implemented project builds a reputation for ten years. Where a “supplier” quickly becomes a “strategic partner.”
There are also other places nobody takes seriously, but which are quietly doing something genuinely interesting.
Desktop FFF and orthopedic sole manufacturing. Sounds unimpressive. Several European companies are printing insoles and soles on demand using farms of cheap FFF printers, with short production runs, full customization, and zero warehousing. On-demand 3D-printed footwear is one of those unexpected directions worth watching closely. Small, agile, profitable.
And then there are those stupid colorful “toys” - snakes, dragon eggs, fidgets. The things every advanced 3D printer user looks at with disgust and contempt.
EVERYONE - from open-source fanatics to engineers optimizing laser paths in metal PBF. All of them get equally pissed off that these idiots make so much money from it while other idiots actually buy it.
Meanwhile, the big, “serious” AM industries should be learning from them. These people ask very simple questions: what does the customer need, when do they need it, and how much will they pay?
They do not debate whether 3D printing will replace injection molding. They simply print and make money.
The Straight Edge 3D Printing Manifesto
In May 2024, in an article published - nomen omen - on 3DPrint.com, I wrote three slogans that I believe are the answer to Peels’ chicken coop.
Be true – Be different – Share and spread.
In case you haven’t noticed, since day one these slogans are part of the logo of The 3D Printing Journal.
Be true. Stop selling promises the technology still cannot deliver. Talk about what genuinely works, for whom, and under what conditions.
Be different. Doing the same thing as everyone else stopped being enough when The III Era of AM ended. Look for markets where your expertise is unique and competition is practically nonexistent.
Share and spread. Knowledge drives the industry faster than capital. Companies that share what they have learned build trust that pays dividends for years.
The AM chicken coop is comfortable. Familiar. Full of people with the same machines and the same customers. It’s easy to stay there.
Easy enough not to notice when the doors close.
Escape the chicken coop. Why? Because the coop is the place where you die...