Most people are aware of the invention of Gutenberg from the year 1500 which was the first machine who was able to print books. A major improvement of the original Gutenberg press was made in the year 1811 by Koenig&Bauer. They have not invented the book-printing itself, but they have invented the lowcost newspaper printing. The former Gutenberg printing machines worked manual, that means there was no motor to drive the machine. The Konig&Bauer machine of 1811 used a steam engine. The first what they have printed was not the bible (a book) but the Times which was a newspaper. The difference is, that a newspaper is sold for a lower price and on cheap paper.
Limitations
In the history of newspapers, the Koenig&Bauer machine was a milestone. But the device had some major bottlenecks which can't be bypassed because of the printing technology itself. The first one is, that even with modern developments in printing machinery the costs for a single copy are relatively high. That means it is physical not possible to print an issue of a newspaper for 0.10 US$. In any cases, paper and ink is needed. A second bottleneck is, that after printing out the newspaper it has to be distributed to the customer. Mostly with cars and sometimes with bicycle. The area in which a newspaper can circulated is locally restricted. Perhaps 100 miles around the printing house are possible, not more.
Everybody who is familiar with media technology knows how to overcome the problems. The technology is called “The internet” and was invented in the early 1990s. From the perspective of media technology the history is very compact:
1500: gutenberg invents the printing press
1811: Koenig&Bauer invents the steam driven printing press
1990: Bill Gates invents the internet
The Gutenberg printing press and beyond
The invention of the gutenberg printing press took place in 15th century. From a technical point of view, the gutenberg press was a machine, and was later improved to the fast-press by Koenig&Bauer. The economical impact was, that the bourgeoisie could uprise. That were doctors, lawyers and scholars who were dependent from knowledge and used his knowledge to earn money with it.
Most of this is history. It was a development from 1500-2000. But what comes after the gutenberg press? The answer was given by Xerox company in the 1970s. They called their invention the digital distribution of knowledge. Today it is called Open Access and means, to distribute pdf papers over the internet. This invention took place around the year 2000 and even today only a minority is familiar with it. The result will be as dramatically like the gutenberg press. LIke in former times, the invention contains on one hand of the technical idea. It is mostly the pdf format, internet routers and computers for showing the information on the screen. The more exciting development will be the economical impact.
Let us go first back to the gutenberg age. The uprising of the bourgeoisie was possible because with the gutenberg press the reproduction costs of books were lower. Over the years, the price decreased to today 30 US$ for a single book and around 10000 US$ per year for an academic journal. Compared to the price which was paid before the year 1500, this is very low. The bourgeoisie and their jobs were only possible because of this low price. The outlook of the electronic open access movement is to reduce the price of information further. No 30 US$ per book but 0 US$ per book will be the new price tag. What are the effects for the bourgeoisie? The simple answer is, that former institutions like libraries, universities, book publishers and a caste system which contains lawyers, doctors and so forth is no longer needed. Who this will transform society into a new status is unclear, but perhaps the development will be as strong like the upraising of the bourgeoisie in the 15th century.
What we can say about the past is, that the bourgeoisie was mainly grouped around the gutenberg press. The advantage of that machine was, that it provides knowledge for a lower price, the disadvantage was that the price was not zero. That means, in the gutenberg age, institutions like universities, libraries and publishers were needed. There was no option to bypass the system. In the post-gutenberg age (which is called the internet) it is possible to be no longer dependent from printed books.
Today's society is mostly organized around printed books. They were printed mechanical and around printed books a high-price education system was established which is visible in schools, universities and careers in that domain. The gutenberg-society is the result of a certain technology, the gutenberg press. If this machine is used actively and for doing business, it make sense to see the university as the most important structure in society. If a new better technology is available, like the internet, the old system which contains of the gutenberg press and their economical impact will lost his power. If printed books are no longer needed, a university is no longer needed. And if a university is not important, the university need no taxpayer money and so forth.
This is well known from the upraising of the bourgeoisie in the 15th century. The first thing what they have asked was if the church is perhaps no longer important. And they were right. If the world is controlled by normal people who are working as a doctor, lawyer and teacher the role of the church is in the minority. Today, in the internet age we can ask for a similar topic. If it is possible to distribute papers over the internet for free, perhaps then we need no longer a classical library?
The answer is open right now. Like i mentioned in the introduction, the Open Access movement is very young, and most people are unsure, if this development is right. But what we can see is, that the development is mostly driven by economical question. What costs a book, what costs an electronic document, and how does this change the world.
Between the gutenberg age and the internet age is a huge similarity visible. Not on a technical level, the gutenberg press works very different from an internet backbone router. But on the economical factor. The main idea behind printing press is to reduce the costs per page. Modern machines can print faster and for lower costs then the machines before. .The same goal is visible in Open Access movement. The idea is to reduce the costs of reading a paper and writing a paper to zero. This is not easy. Because a paper has to be created first, and this takes time. So it is not possible to reduce the costs really to zero, because there is always need for an author and until the author can write a paper he needs a lot of knowledge. So the question is how to train new authors, and how to motivate them to write papers. But the general direction is to reduce the costs. And this works surprisingly well.
How we can describe the past of education? The best idea is, to go back into a time in which the internet was no available and printed books were the only medium for distribution of knowledge. In that imaginary world, all bourgeoisie institutions making sense. That means, in the pre-internet age it was not possible to reduce the costs of a newspaper under a certain level. Because on the hardware side the paper has to be printed. And if 1 mio people want to read a book, which costs each 30 US$, than the overall costs are 30 mio US$. So it make sense, to use libraries for sharing the books and to use centralized universities in which people are teaching who are familiar with knowledge. What does that mean? If books are expensive, education is expensive. And if education is expensive not all people can be educated. This results into a society structure of specialists. One person is only an expert for law question, the next has knowledge about medicine and the third person has no knowledge because he is poor. In the pre-internet age there was no option to change the situation, because the costs for printing books are fixed.
If we are taking the internet out of the equation the time from 1500-2000 makes sense, and the society structure of universities, experts and 90% non-educated people makes sense. It some kind of normal development. That means with the technology of 1800 it was not possible to distribute knowledge to everybody. And now it become clear, what will happen if we are putting the internet into the equation. The first was the internet will change is, that the plot of the gutenberg age makes no longer sense. If the costs of knowledge is zero everybody can get knowledge, there is no need to focus only on medicine, one person can be an expert for all subjects from math, biology up to law.
Again, who this future will look like is unclear, what we can say for sure is only how the past look in which the internet wasn't available. It was the classical gutenberg age from 1500-2000 in which printed books were the dominant form of knowledge distribution.