In the modern debate around Open Access a former discussion is often no longer seen as valid, the idea to see a student as a customer. But in reality, both ideologies are strongly connected, because they have something to do with productivity. But let us telling the story from the beginning.
At first, we have to back in time in which the world was well understand. The education before the internet age and before the upraising of the 1980s with his business yuppies can be seen as small and easy to understand. There are traditional institutions, teachers and students. Education in that area was something for the elite, that means, a very small percentage of one year was able to attend higher education. Why? It was mostly the result of the costs for education which were high. Perhaps a small example. If the only technology available to copy a book is a handwritten copy, then the price of the book is high. If television is not available, to only way to attend a school is travel physical to the location. Until the 1970s, higher education was seen as a longterm investment, that means the costs were so high, that 99% of the people couldn't pay the bill and that was the reason why they don't attend a school.
Now, let us describe some technologies which were used in the time after the 1970s to reduce the costs of distributing knowledge. At first, the classical printing press becomer cheaper, the production of books costs less money, with the internet the costs of coping a book were nearly zero. Secondly, it become possible to store and playback lectures from Stanford and M.i:T. and third, the number of books and papers which are available is higher. All these combined together changed the price for higher education. It become cheaper. It is no longer necessary to see education as a longterm investment, the student can decide on the fly, if he want's to watch a video from Stanford, M.I.T. or Harvard. He is no longer forced to travel physical to the location, all what he needs to do is type in the URL into his webbrowser, and he can bring the teacher to the monitor.
If the costs for education became lower, it is possible to change the definition of what education is. In the more modern form, the student can see themself as a customer. Getting access to higher education have to be planned like getting access to a movie. A little bit of planning is always neccessary, because at first the student needs an end-device for example a Linux notebook or an ipad. And he needs an Internet flatrate and so on. But the amount of time which has to be invested until the personal experiance with higher education can start is relatively small. It is smaller then in the 1970s. If an individual in that area was planning to attend a course in Harvard, he would have to be prepared very much. And for 99% of the people it was impossible to visit Harvard ever in their lifetime, because it was too far away, and the costs were too high.
Now I want to go back to the Open Access movement which was cited in the introduction. Open Access means basically to reduce the costs for the consumer further. Instead of paying a paper for 20 US$ each (which is a low price compared to an interlibrary loan of the 1970s) the idea is to deliver a current science paper for free. The only price which a student has to pay, to get access to Google Scholar is the computerhardware he use, the internet-connection and the power provider. Open Access delivers two things: at first it is a technology revolution and secondly it fulfills the idea of “Student as a customer”.
Often, this mentality was described as a political ideology which is called consumeration and market-driven economy. But in reality it is not possible to start this movement without a technology innovation before. For example, if Internet technology is not available it is not possible to define the role of a student as a customer. That means, if the costs for each student for get access to higher education is extreme high, it is not possible for most people to see education like shopping. Even if somebody is explaining to ordinary man, that he should buy a course at harvard he will not following his advice, because he has not 100k US$ for the fee. Only after the pricetag was reduced downto to 0.99 US$ for downloading the last lecture of an Harvard course, it become possible that the student see himself as a customer, and attending the course is like watching a clip in the itunes store.
A look backwards to the intention of the gutenberg printing press shows us, that the development was not completely new. In the 15th the technical innovation of the automatic printing changed the society. At first, gutenberg came up with a special machine and sometimes later his books were distributed widely and transformed the society into Age of Enlightenment. This was done with a nonreligious act, the selling of bible. Gutenberg was a businessman, he used his machine for printing and selling books. The gutenberg press forced the other side into the role of an customer. What Gutenberg has done was simply, to sell out the christian religion. He took the old testament, copied the work and sold it on the market. Perhaps in time of Gutenberg this was recognized as heretic.