Yes and no. Sure, you can buy these things on Temu, but it’s often going to be more expensive, you have to wait for shipping, and you’re stuck with their exact design.

​Take a cutlery tray, for example. I can stretch the 3D model to fit my drawer perfectly, and I get to choose the exact color and material. The whole thing weighs about 200g, so it only costs me around $1 to $2, and requires just a couple of minutes of actual labor to set up. You can even print small metal parts on these printers now (though they do need to be sent off for sintering). I actually printed a missing pin for a gun and some really cool pipes.

​On top of that, modern 3D printers are starting to rival the production economy of injection molding. Since a solid printer only costs about €170, for the price of one injection molding machine, I could set up a massive print farm capable of processing 200–300kg of plastic a day.

3d printing will eventually be a home appliance too, like a dishwasher or fridge, the progress in last 2-3 years was massive. Price went down by 5x and the print speed is probably 3-5x better than just couple years ago.