This article outlines preliminary findings from a futures forecasting exercise where participants in Shenzhen and Singapore considered the socio-technological construction of 3D printing in terms of work and social change. We offered participants ideal political-economic futures across local–global knowledge and capital–commons dimensions, and then had them backcast the contextual waypoints across markets, culture, policy, law and technology dimensions that help guide towards each future. Their discussion identified various contextually sensitive points, but also tended to dismiss the farthest reaches of each proposed ideal, often reverting to familiar contextual signifiers. Here, we offer discussion on how participants saw culture and industry shaping futures for pertinent political economic concerns in the twenty-first century.