Working at a lenticular promotional company, where we made 3D images for advertising purposes, I’d occasionally get a call from someone who wanted to 3D print some prototype for their potential business or a gadget for personal use. Most of the calls were local to the LA area, so I’d direct them toDeezmaker，附近唯一的3D打印机零售商，他们以合理的价格进行按需打印。因此，当我听说UPS宣布他们会发表并为小企业主提供内部3D打印时，我有些沮丧。
See, last Wednesday, the UPS Storereleased a statementsaying that they’d start offering 3D printing services in their stores, beginning with select locations in San Diego, California. The machine they will initially rely on is a Stratasys uPrint SE Plus, which uses fused filament deposition of up to 9 different colored filaments and water-soluble support material to create pretty high resolution plastic prints. Because the UPS Store is already a location some business owners might go to to handle services like packaging and shipping, it makes sense that they might also head there for other business needs. And UPS had also conducted a survey of small-business owners that expressed a great deal of interest in using 3D printing services for “prototypes, artistic renderings or promotional materials,” according to the press release.
UPS商店的营销和小型企业解决方案副总裁Michelle Van Slyke指出，3D打印可能会为客户提供优势，他说：“初创企业，企业家和小型企业主可能没有资金购买3D打印机独自一人，但他们可能需要向当前和潜在客户展示原型。通过在中心提供3D打印功能，我们可以帮助促进小型企业客户成功的机会。”
And all of this is true. It will certainly serve small business owners and startups to have a local place to get 3D-printed prototypes and the like. But, at the same time as it serves some small business owners, it will inhibit others, like Deezmaker. Because names like The UPS Store and Staples, which also announced that it will host 3D printing services, appear so readily in the mind’s eye of consumers, anyone in need of a 3D print will instinctually head there instead of the newly minted 3D printer retailers struggling to make a name and presence for themselves.
过去，很容易说这就是饼干崩溃的方式，但我不希望饼干再崩溃了。我希望人们还记得去斯台普斯或UPS商店做任何事情的感觉。Rather than people truly passionate about 3D printing who do it because they love it, customers will be faced with employees making just above minimum wage (currently far below that of a living wage in the United States) that aren’t particularly thrilled with their job. Of course, small hackspaces might not have the high tech equipment, likely using RepRaps instead of uPrints; however, the prints at UPS, though high in resolution and diverse in color, might not be produced with care. And, so, customers will realize that they’d rather visit their local 3D printer retailer or hackspace to get a print done. This is what I’m hoping anyway. But, you can watch the UPS Store promotional video below and remember that it’s a promotional video and that reality might not be as polished as the ad.
资源：商业Wire
