I was looking for information about 3D printers and saw this thread. Forgive my stupidness, but what 3D printing have in common with blockchain?
What do they have in common - nothing.
However, as in many industries, blockchain tech can be used to verify the source/owner of something. In this case say you make a 3D model of a specific widget and charge for the STL file to it. Blockchain could be used to verify who created the file, owns the rights to it and that the file is unchanged from when it was entered into the blockchain tracking system.
Yes a private database is able to do the same thing but usually does not allow the Public to query it. A distributed (Public) Ledger does let the 3rd parties query it. The only remaining question would be who runs the chain.