Are we being too one-sided and optimistic about 3D printing?

Maggie Koerth-Baker at BoingBoing rounds up two arguments being made on 3D printing at Technology Review, by Christopher Mims and Tim Maly: are we being too one-sided and optimistic?

Mims' argument:

As 3-D printers come within reach of the hobbyist—$1,100 for MakerBot's Thing-O-Matic—and The Pirate Bay declares "physibles" the next frontier of piracy, I'm seeing usually level-headed thinkers like Clive Thompson and Tim Maly declare that the end of shipping is here and we should all start boning up on Cory Doctorow's science fiction fantasies of a world in which any object can be rapidly synthesized with a little bit of energy and raw materials.

This isn't just premature, it's absurd. 3-D printing, like VR before it, is one of those technologies that suggest a trend of long and steep adoption driven by rapid advances on the systems we have now. And granted, some of what's going on at present is pretty cool—whether it's in rapid prototyping, solid-fuel rockets, bio-assembly or just giant plastic showpieces.

Maly:

Chris is right that 3-D printing as it stands isn't a replacement for the contemporary industrial supply chain. It's clearly a transitional technology. The materials suck. The resolution is terrible. The objects are fragile. You can't recycle the stuff. 

Maybe early home 3-D printers use only plastic and can only make objects that fall within certain performance restrictions. Maybe it starts out as, like, jewelry, the latest model toys, and parts for Jay Leno's car. But there's no way that lasts. People are already working on the problem. They are working especially hard on the materials problem. 

At the same time, it's not hard to imagine a convergence from the other direction. Some materials and formats will fall out of favor because they are hard to make rapidly. Think of how most documents are 8.5×11 (or A4) these days. It's just not worth the hassle of wrangling dozens of paper formats. 

3D printing enjoys hypes similar to VR, nanotech and hydrogen cars. These things never turn out the way they were intended. Will we ever print iPhones? Maybe, maybe not. By the time it's possible, mobile technology will be way beyond iPhones so arguing that it's possible is analogous to "winning the previous war". We'll see where 3D printing will take us because we don't define technology's future; it defines ours.

Is 3D printing the new virtual reality? (BoingBoing)
Why 3-D Printing Will Go the Way of Virtual Reality (Technology Review)
Why 3-D Printing Isn't Like Virtual Reality (Technology Review)