There will always be manufacturers making products on a massive scale. Through technology what an individual or small groups can make will be much different in the not so distant future. Labor intensive fabrication will be replaced with machine intensive fabrication. It is those people who can manage the machines who will drive the economy in the future. They will become the entrepreneurs.
Beyond counting people and collecting taxes and accounts payable one of the prime early uses for computers was to run machinery. If you know your computer history then you know it is arguable one of the first mechanical computer devices was the jacquard loom. It was a machine programmed with punch cards used to create complex patterns in woven cloth. It is partially what inspired Charles Babbage. Punch cards were in use as recently as the seventies and rolls of tape were in use into the early 90’s. Large manufacturers have long depended on automated devices to control the fabrication process.
There are a lot of smart people out there who just want knowledge and information to be free. Free as in liberty and sometimes if not most times free as in beer. So much has has been done by these folks it would probably fill a few of volumes just to do a summary. Traditionally software has been the “magic” intangible keeping advanced systems out of the hands of those small time entrepreneurs who could benefit. There has been a wall of business types and sale people all who paid themselves better than those who actually did the work. This limited distribution and also the financial opportunities for those who were actually creating today’s technological wonders. The internet has leveled the playing field. There is a lot of software that is low cost or no cost to acquire and deploy. Help is readily available ant a reasonable cost from the people who developed it if necessary.
Nothing has become more competitive than hardware. It would seem Moore’s Law was prophetic. I am constantly amazed at what can be bought for fifty dollars. The short list, would be Aduino’s, Raspberry Pi’s, and those amazing little 6560 based multi axis controllers splattered all over E-Bay. Add to that the multitude of tables cheap used workstations and tools available there too. Then there is the interest in additive manufacturing also known as 3-D printing and you have an arsenal as big as the research and development department of most corporations if they even have one.
Artificial intelligence is starting to take off as well. I could digress into the nuances of this idea. However it is apparent one of the first uses of this technology is going to be for use i knowledge systems. It will only be a matter of time before the Engineering Handbook, Machinist’s Handbook, and other things like the properties of materials and calculations for a variety of uses will all be available for the asking.
Every idea manifested into something tangible starts off as a sketch of some sort. It may be in the mind’s eye but most likely it is in the form of some kind of sketch. For the past 30 years or so it has most likely been in the form of some kind of Computer Aided Drafting System. This is another area where technology has really exploded. Traditionally it too was a high flyer with regard to cost. The software was expensive and the hardware required equally so . Today a perfectly adequate CAD system can be had affordably .
The internet is a wonderful and powerful tool. It has connected industrious and brilliant people all over the world to one another. It is my opinion and only an opinion mind you its real value has been overlooked. The direction of computers and the internet will be to free those with the ability to take control of the production of what they need on a local as well as a global scale. The disrupters will be those who will be able to provide goods locally and globally with the flexibility to adjust and adapt to the needs of the marketplace. This will allow STEM workers a unique opportunity to become self employed empowered entrepreneurs no dependent on a banker or a corporation for their livelihood. It will be a real game changer.
