And as the technology tries to move up-market, they’re creating new distribution channels that will solve these problems as they arise. You mention CE certification – this could be solved in a number of ways that don’t require everyone to have ID training. Perhaps kickstarter or shapeways could have some trained people on staff to shepherd designs through the process. Perhaps there could be a generic approval for certain building blocks. Who knows? But if they can capture a lot of non-creators, then they’ll have funds and motivation to solve the up-market problems.

I’m not arguing with your main point, that ID expertise and practices are still very valuable for what they’re currently being used for today. It’s just that there’s a whole new segment with much lower expectations that’s poised to eat away the market from the bottom. Saying that the output isn’t high enough quality is true for current mass-marketed products, but that isn’t the competition for these cheap low-end technologies right now, the competition is nothing. If they can win against nothing, then they’ll reach the desired quality eventually.

This seems short sighted; isn’t their convergence inevitable? In the end of the era of screen printing, the same could have been said of a dot-matrix printer… now that technology produces such magnificent printed images that I need an episode of “How It’s Made” to zoom in, slow it down, in order to comprehend its robustness and speed.

As a designer, I see 3D printing settling alongside current manufacturing techniques – maybe, some day, surpassing them. For now, the lower barrier to entry may reduce the value of (a segment of) my skillset, but the expanded capabilities enhance my freedom to focus on what drove me to design in the first place – conceiving ideas that improve the world, and using everything at my disposal to make them real.