You’ll Download Physical Objects Sooner Than You Think

[saras]

10. You can't download any raw materials, just plans

You don't download object, you download 3D CAD drawings, and your 3D printer, or your twenty-year-old 3D milling table, makes 3D objects.

To download sneakers requires that your "printer" contain all the materials - I suspect we're talking about some really cheap shoes here, maybe even prison-quality, but in twenty years that may be the norm for Americans. If every "object" you want can be made out of the same cheap plastic, then no problem - it'll save you a trip to Wal-Mart.

Now when my printer can transmute matter - I can dump my waste in the bin and it makes whatever I want out of it, even if it has to rearrange nuclei into different atoms - that's a printer that can reasonably be said to let me download "things".

This process is trivially different than making etched circuit boards - you "download" the pattern of copper that is left on the board, and you make a plastic circuit board with that pattern of copper on it. Big deal.