As 3D printing expands there is an ever-expanding need for access to high quality content. At the moment the majority is downloaded free but does this have a long term future? Will STL files follow the same path as Napster and MP3 files?
3D printing has exploded onto the tech scene over the past five years like nothing else. The possibilities are endless and innovation in additive manufacturing is ripe at the moment. Nearly every week there is a high-profile announcement of venture capital investment funding in the development of new hardware in the industry. This is mainly focused at the development of 3D printers.
From industrial metal 3D printing to consumer desktop 3D printing, the industry is on a rapid journey of expansion. However, a 3D printer is useless without high quality content to print. If you are a high skilled CAD engineer then over the next decade you will have hit the jackpot as the need for content creators will determine how fast the industry will keep growing. Without content, printers will stand idle.
Imagine a smartphone with no apps, imagine if ipods never had MP3s, then then the world as we know it would look very different. 3D printing is following the same trajectory. The graph below shows the journey of the itunes store and downloaded apps over the past decade.
Cumulative number of apps downloaded
Compare this information to the predicted growth of additive manufacturing in general and you can see a definite similarity in the evolution of the industry as a whole. The question is how can you keep the growth of the industry on course and is it sustainable long term in its current format of how content is generated and shared.
3D Printing Industry Growth
When MP3s first started gaining attention, the sharing of the content for free was an epidemic. Nearly everyone who had access to the internet would download and share files for free. Why would you consider paying for content when it was all free to consume. However, thinking about the early days of MP3s, we didn’t have smart phones and there wasn’t the ability to purchase affordable content such as the norm now with accessing music from itunes etc.
This situation caused a massive headache for the music industry as artists were being cut out of royalty payments from the sales of their music. The problem being there were very little sales of conventional physical music e.g. CDs and the digital age caught the industry napping.
Napster literally made the music industry modernise. However, Napster had it’s day and is now a subscription service where artists will be rewarded for their talents.
How does this relate to 3D printing? As 3D printing is expanding, so is the sharing of content to feed the printer. As mentioned, without content printers will sit idle. As the industry has expanded so have file sharing sites such as thingiverse, pinshape, myminifactory and the 3dfilemarket.
As these sites have expanded so has the adoption of 3D printing as a whole. The more content available the more attractive it will be to potential consumers. All of these platforms offer users the ability to share their content for free with some offering designers the opportunity to monetize their skills by selling designs. If you have designed the file yourself then you can choose how to share the content, you could offer it free or charge per download.
However, who owns the copyright if shared for free? Is it acceptable for people with CAD skills to copy other designs and share for free and undermine current businesses e.g. LEGO. Or do current businesses and manufactures need to keep pace with such a disruptive industry and embrace the digital revolution. Is the current mass sharing of content for free holding back the industry and stopping the best designers from embracing 3D printing? Will 3D printing reach a plateau where high quality content gets drowned out by low quality free designs? Would the consumer happily pay for content to print like they currently pay for MP3s.
Fifteen years ago this idea was still in it’s infancy with music files, but Steve Jobs and the itunes library changed our habits. The question with 3D printing is what will it take to change our current habits and reward designers for sharing high quality content? Will 3D printing have it’s Napster moment with the adoption of regularly paying for 3D printing STL files?
For the industry to follow the projected growth charts shown above, the creation of content should be rewarded and when this is mainstream the adoption of 3D printing on a mass consumer scale will follow suit. At the moment we are still treading water when it comes to tackling the sharing of content. Watch this space with interest over the next five to ten years……
The 3Dfilemarket was set up as a platform allowing users to share high quality content both free and paid. The concept being that good designers should be rewarded for their talents. The higher quality content that is generated the more attractive the technology will look to potential adopters and the 3Dfilemarket supports this by offering designers high commissions on all paid downloads.
The 3dfilemarket has grown rapidly since its creation nearly three years ago and it has amassed over 1 million views of its designs. The platform is totally self-funded from startup without any Seed investment or venture capital rounds of investment. The founder is a high school teacher who still teaches technology every day and runs the 3Dfilemarket in his spare time. We are looking for a backer to take the platform to its next level and help keep the current expansion going.
