Re: [rp-ml] free STL Files and other (free) things we wish for in the new year

Be careful what you wish for Adrian - if everything becomes free (including education) what will YOU be doing for a living, just building parts for your own use, using your very own RepRap? Won't THAT start getting 'old' real fast too? No, I don't think the proposed, and supposedly new, paradigm of "you should and can have anything you want for free' in the 21st century, is going to last all that long. It really just comes down to a modern form of crafting or 'having a hobby', just using newer tools (and/or toys). Actually Gene Roddenberry (creator of 'Star Trek') really got the jump on everyone's prognostications, when in the late 50's, he already envisioned, not only a world where just about everything could be made using a 'replicator' but perhaps, even more interestingly, a world where money would no longer be needed and obsolete, BECAUSE everything could be made instantly, at almost no cost, so people would only 'work' on what they wanted to do and everyone had, essentially, all the same material stuff they both needed and wanted. Now, THAT's what I would call a nice (utopian) new year's wish! G. Sachs ________________________________ From: Adrian Bowyer <A.Bowyer_at_bath.ac.uk> To: Andrew Chantrill <andrew_at_chantrill.org> Cc: rp-ml <rp-ml_at_rapid.lpt.fi> Sent: Tue, January 5, 2010 12:12:23 PM Subject: Re: [rp-ml] free STL Files and other things we wish for in the new year By locking out competition a company can charge higher prices, but those are not then visible in the profits because of empire building and other inefficiencies, and tax avoidance. Do read Boldrin and Levine's book - they are top-level economists, and they go into this sort of thing in considerable detail. RepRap was developed for £20,000, incidentally. Best wishes Adrian Dr Adrian Bowyer http://people.bath.ac.uk/ensab http://reprap.org Andrew Chantrill wrote: > Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't quite see why patents in > the RP industry necessarily make the products expensive. > > If the assumption is that by locking out competition a company can > charge higher prices, then this should be reflected in their profits. > > > The company that has the most patents in the industry is probably 3D, > yet as of their last SEC filing they had an accumulated deficit of > over $81M. > > I suspect the reason that RepRap and its various derivatives are less > expensive is because the development costs are covered elsewhere, and > because the capabilities of the process are relatively limited.
Received on Tue Jan 05 20:41:40 2010