3D printing: The future of technology

Prosthetic limbs are expensive, costing around £3000 for a basic one. Here in the UK this is not much of an issue, thanks to our healthcare being provided for by the NHS, in America, it can cost between eleven and one hundred and twenty thousand for a replacement. However with just a little research on YouTube, a father managed to provide his son with a replacement hand for just ten dollars. All this was made possible by a 3D printer owned by the boy's school.

Ink printers do not simply stain the page that they are printing on to, the ink sits slightly on top of the paper. 3D printers work by repeatedly layering the chosen material until it finishes its creation. This creation can be anything from a simple plastic models to microchips. But how does this apply to economics?

3D printers are still in their early days of use, but as shown above they can be used to save consumers massive amounts of money. As 3D printing technology improves, firms producing products like prosthetics and other such necessities. It may become possible to pirate not just a videogame, but an entire games console. Jobs are unlikely to be lost as most mass production already uses machinery, so the main issue comes from there being less of a need to buy goods outside of the raw materials needed to create them, however it is going to be quite some time before that becomes too much of an issue.

3D printing has also opened up interesting possibilities for new technology. Stem cell research, which was previously banned due to the ethically questionable nature of obtaining said cells, can now restart as the cells can simply be printed by the 3D printer, without the need of the destruction of a zygote. More than being a simple convenience, 3D printing is already changing the world as we know it.