This is an amazing idea, but the economics really don't check out as stated. Home printers caught on because for a brief flash of history, people needed to bridge the gap between digital and paper based systems often enough to warrant owning a device for that specific purpose. People buy cars because they need a flexible transportation option that they can use every single day. Even though these investments are expensive, the benefits outweigh(ed) the costs. Nowadays, it's not uncommon for your situation to be that printing things is a rare need, and on those rare occasions you can just go to a place like FedEx. As usage becomes more occasional, the need for decentralization drops.<p>And that is the case with a vaccine printer. This is something you would use maybe once or twice a year, and then it would just sit there. For a piece of equipment that will be expensive initially and then probably require regular maintenance, that simply doesn't make sense.<p>But distribution and availability of vaccines <i>are</i> problems, and this technology could be a solution to them. You wouldn't have the printer in your home, though. That's crazy talk. Instead, your doctor or clinic would have the printer. Instead of paying based on the scarcity of the vaccine and the difficulties of shipping them around the country, you'd be paying for the licensing of the vaccine and the maintenance of the printer (which makes way more sense if spread across hundreds of patients). Assuming old business models don't die too hard, this would mean higher availability and lower costs.