Comment by peteforde
4 hours ago
I don't know why you believe this, but it's not even remotely accurate.
I didn't want to argue with you, so I did some research.
The global 3D printer market grew from USD$24B in 2024 to $30B in 2025. It's estimated to grow 24% y/y for the next decade: https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/3d-printer...
If you Google it, this is generally matched by 5-6 different research companies.
Laser cutters are a USD$7B global market today, and also expected to grow around ~8% y/y into the next decade: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/Laser-Cutti...
A huge number of YouTube channel creators I subscribe to have received Carvera CNC mills over the past few months. Anecdotal but striking. It seems like everyone who left LTT to go solo has a CNC now, even if they usually review graphics cards.
Opulo, the makers of the Lumen PnP cannot achieve less than a 1 month lead time, seemingly no matter how many people they hire or how much factory space they acquire. And that's a pretty niche device, relatively speaking.
In conclusion, you're wrong.
No, you did a great job arguing my point: it's a market in the tens of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of units, so somewhere between saltwater aquaria and golf
I think you’ve done a good job disproving your point that no one is buying them. Golf is a very popular hobby.
The point of this thread: the maker movement isn’t dead simply because most people don’t care about CNC machines. In reality, there are loads of makers & people who love tinkering and building things for themselves, it’s easier than ever to do so (and to build very non-trivial products for yourself), and more and more people are able to get into this.
If the maker movement was actually dead, we wouldn’t be seeing an explosion of powerful, easy-to-use manufacturing tools available at lower & lower price points.
I guess your point is that it’s not exactly mainstream, not that no one is buying them. Which is true, but who cares.