What does a "Second Life that doesn't suck" look like? What would have made it not suck? What does a "Newton that doesn't suck" look like? What would have made it not suck? I know of no example of the 2ndL but as far as a "newton that doesn't suck" it sure as hell wasn't the Palm Pilot. That sucker was virtually indistinguishable from the Newton and people adopted them like hotcakes. The Newton was simply too early. Apple had a digital camera, too. Again, for clarity: of the people in this discussion, I'll bet I'm the only one who has actually played with 3d printing. And I did it a long goddamn time ago. And the things that made it moderately compelling in 1998 are the things that make it moderately compelling in 2012... the only difference is that 14 years later, a whole bunch of people who don't understand it have it in their heads that it's cool because they saw a blog post about candyfab.