The last few centuries have been the era of mass standardized production. Artisans were replaced by industrialization that commodified just about everything to a basic pattern. But perhaps that is about to change.
There will, of course, always be standard commodities as long as our current civilization survives. Automation can increasingly produce most of them with minimal intervention. These will no doubt continue at the core of wholesale raw materials. Flour and cotton cloth, for example.
But the final consumer product can quite likely be taken over by individualized targeting relying on individual stored preferences. Already patterns can be transferred onto most goods automatically by machine monograms, pictures, etc. Clay can be shaped to make, for example, individualized pottery sets based on historic AI specifications. 3D printing can vary almost any product in the same way.
Even though it may not be as instant as we have become used to, I suspect most of these individualized orders will be completed in a few weeks.
Not that it will make more than a faddish difference to anyone. Just another creeping change that will make our descendants wonder why we were always willing to live with the same identical, boring, purchases.
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 