Not many people have had any taste of 3d printing. My impression is most non-geeks are only vaguely aware of it. Feed lines about 3d printers being used as weapons factories for terrorists into general public, and those informed enough to know better will be too much of a minority to combat that kind of propaganda for at least a few more years.
The number of people who had a taste of file sharing before the legal battles began was much, much larger, and the only legitimate basis for those legal battles was to protect profits of businesses... yet 15 years later, it's still one of the hottest ongoing legal debates and we're constantly having to fight off draconian measures against copyright infringement, especially with many other unadmitted interests piggybacking on the IP protection crusade.
Yeah, the arguments and framing of the topic put forth by that crusade are laughed at by perhaps a majority, and yet it's still an incredibly powerful and relentless lobby.
And all it's trying to do is force people to pay for data. How are industries going to respond when people no longer feel the need to pay for anything that can be made of plastic? And it's only a matter of time before that expands to other materials as well.
I'm not saying that anything is going to happen, but I can easily imagine it. And regulating 3d printers would be much easier than regulating internet activity.
It should be noted that a complete collapse of the process of making things would most likely (and don't jump me) hurt the economy.
The way we do things now is what hurts the economy. We need an economy focused upon bringing quality services to people instead of what we have now, which claims to be that but is more about holla holla get dolla.
Hurts the economy
for us. Not for the people who are getting dolla, and like to use their dolla to protect the exclusivity of their dolla getting privileges.