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OK. And the things you make with your printer still have to compete with stuff from custom processes. So e.g. your printed tea cup will probably not as good as a normal tea cup, but it may be more convenient to just print some cups instead of going out and buying some.



If this were true, the greeting card market wouldn't be nearly as big as it is.

Also, printing will probably more expensive than buying things made via more conventional processes.


It depends on how you define "more expensive."

Traditional manufacturing processes have really expensive tooling, but then each part is really cheap. Printed parts are always the same price. There's an inflection point where if you're going to make more than a few tens of thousands of things, it's cheaper to make the tooling. But if you're not going to make that volume, printing is cheaper.

Like many things in life, it's all about the best tool for the job.




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