In 1966, writer and futurist Gene Rodenberry debuted a vision of a utopian future where humans had given up war between nations, outgrown the need for money, focused their efforts on exploration and enlightenment, and lived in a peaceful world where there was abundance and anything you wanted could be manufactured at a molecular level in a matter of seconds.
Star Trek outlined what a future earth might be like if we got our shit together and started working for the betterment of man, instead of the profit of men. And like all good science fiction, gradually, some of the imagined fictions started to become reality. For example, today we are on the very cusp of a revolution in product design that will mean that anyone with a 3D printer (replicator) will be able to produce all the items they need for the smooth running of their life: homewares, engine parts, jewellery, medicines, furniture, gadgets, and a lot more that hasn't been dreamt up yet.
Even without a 3D printer unit at home, there is a pervasive shift towards open-source self-making that can be seen to be growing throughout modern culture. Take, for example, Nick Ierodiaconou's OpenDesk project. Furniture is made locally to the buyer, using a network of makers and participating studios, or it can be sent flatpacked for the customer to assemble themselves. But the really exciting thing is that the designs (made by professional designers) are gifted as free downloads to anyone who wants them. An intrepid individual with a workshop of their own, can use the designs to make their own furniture from scratch, or even redesign it, tweaking the original with changes that are unique to their tastes.
This kind of open design isn't new. Mozilla's web browser Firefox is famously opensource, as is the operating system Linux - dedicated software engineers making millions of collective revisions to the source code to create the ultimate design by committee app. The fear with product design, and home making - especially where 3D printing is concerned - is that product designers themselves will be put out of business as "normal" people come up with their own designs, or "rip-off" the digital files used for 3D printing/prototyping.
Personally, I don't believe this will be the case, although I do think that a new system of intellectual property and open collaboration is necessary to accommodate the shift from consumerism to constructionism.
The Future will be open
Firstly, there will always be desire. Adding a new way to "get stuff" - i.e. making it yourself - is effectively nothing more than another purchasing option. In a world where consumers are spoilt for choice already, what makes one person buy an iPhone over a Blackberry as it is? There are functional differences for a start, making things better than they can be made at home is the first advantage professional designers (in concert with manufacturers) will have. But more to the point, most people buy an iPhone because it's an iPhone; because they can afford it; because they have a sense of brand style and they want you to know it. Anyone who would go to the trouble of making their own 3D printed iPhone knockoff certainly wouldn't have purchased one in the first place.
Secondly, digital files, as anyone who has ever used a Bitcoin can attest, can be locked and associated with a single owner. Of course they can also be cracked and redistributed, but this is a reality of almost everything in our world today, and the sooner we accept that the better. However, going back to Bitcoin, if a digital design file were given the same kind of protection a Bitcoin file were given, then Intellectual Property rights would be protected with a simply verifiable process of file comparison. No expensive patents, registered designs or legal fees required. A digital DNA comparison, if you like, would be all the verification needed to determine the validity of a designers claim.
Of course all of this assumes that profit is the ultimate goal of the designer. In the world of Star Trek, money is a thing of the past, and without it, design and innovation flow as freely through society as a river emptying into the sea. The open source movement's spread into the material world is the genesis of this money-less future. Once we can produce anything we need without having to purchase it, money will become obsolete. In which case, rather than designers becoming obsolete, without the need to earn a living, only those of us who truly love design and engineering and have a talent for it will contribute to the collective design-verse. Many more great "designers" will appear from the general population, while many sub-par designers will be free to slip off to do something more in keeping with their real talents.
In the mean time, "pay if you can, build if you want, and share openly" seems to be the likely order of the day. I believe it will challenge those of us who have invested in a life as a professional designer to up our game, make sure that we are creating the basis of what will form future generations of open design.