> Well, let's take a look at some numbers. "Service Industries USA," 3rd
>edition, lists data for SIC code 7334:........the vast majority of them are
>probably single-shop, i.e., mom-and-pop companies.
> Conclusion: Kinko's and similar chains command a very small portion of
>the total copy shop market. The market is owned by thousands of very small
>companies.
Touche - but it sounds to me like we're in violent agreement on the
larger issues. Most of our disagreement is that you're looking farther
into the future than I am.
I don't agree that fab shops will ever proliferate like copy shops,
because there will always be many fewer customers for fab shop services.
How many Kinko's customers are truly creating the content they copy?
There may be a lot more fab shops in the future when the cost of the
equipment and labor (and hence the service) goes way down, but it still
wouldn't make sense to put one in every bedroom community.
> Nope. FedEx is great when cost requires the centralization you refer to,
>as it does today. But tomorrow's fab shop customers will much prefer to go
>down the street and sit and wait for the model to be done, which will take an
>hour or less, instead of waiting overnight for FedEx.
Get serious - can you really see an engineer who's too impatient to wait
for overnight delivery going to a fab shop and waiting even an hour for
the part? Electronic data transfer to the fab shop will be the norm,
although it will be nice to be able to take a short hop to pick up the
part.
Bruce Christie
(909) 948-6854
(909) 980-6879 (fax - please call first)
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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