MT has been a high-stakes game, and the magnitude of the undertaking, in terms of staff time, economic investment, and computing power, has tended to bar even the most intrepid, technically astute, and wel-capitalized of the independent translators. For most translators it remains an arcane, forbidding, and largely irrelevant enterprise. In this article the author attempts to answer what the future of MT holds for the large numbers of professionals who do not work in an institutional setting?