Jame5

From Jame5:

The rise of self-replicating universal nano assemblers had not eradicated scarcity as expected, at least not in the sense many people had believed it would. It merely shifted the manufacturing cost for goods to the consumer and left it to the assemblers to supply the energy and raw materials to transform design specifications from virtual to physical reality. The cost went down, but large parts of the savings were added right back by the brand owners that henceforth concentrated on research and development, design, market research and advertising. One did not buy a Ferrari, one owned a licensed copy, and those still did not come cheap.

Reality is catching up with another step in the direction when you wont simply buy a Ferrari but download a licensed copy to be printed with your MakerBot 4 ready for the daily commute. Or even better – a pirated copy of physical objects as now on offer in a new category on the PirateBay:

We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.

I am looking forward to that day and have been since 2005.