Everyone Thinks FDM 3D Printing Is a Desktop Toy. The $15 Billion Market Disagrees.

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Picture the person you associate with FDM 3D printing.

They're probably at a cluttered desk, a spool of PLA on a rack behind them, watching a Benchy print through the glass door of an Ender 3. They're calibrating first layers, arguing about bed adhesion in a Reddit thread, and producing increasingly impressive miniatures and cable clips and costume props. The community is enormous, vocal, deeply technical, and genuinely passionate.

Now zoom out.

Because that community — vibrant, creative, and growing as it is — represents...