If volume commercial purchasing is possible at prices slightly above what they charge schools and students, we could see a revolution in low-volume consumer electronics. If 3D printing or other low-volume enclosure manufacturing is cheap enough, that is.
Oh man, we would see democratization of manufacturing! How durable the stuff printed from such printer? How long would it last (doesn't deteriorate/vanish/melt)?
I forgot to mention FCC and similar testing as well -- that would need to be made a lot more accessible and affordable. We need either an exemption for low-volume electronics (maybe such an exemption exists?), or a streamlined process for modular electronics so that each component (e.g the Pi) needs to be tested only once, and anyone using previously-tested components can just pass on their certificates, kind of like RoHS.
