The Gutenberg Galaxy is a virtual space of printed books. The most important event was the invention of the Gutenberg press in the 15th century. This technology allows for the first time to reduce the photocopy costs. A later milestone was the invention of the motor driven high speed press by Koenig&Bauer in the 19th century. They have revolutionized the printing of newspapers. At the same time the first public libraries were established in larger cities all over the world.
A recent event in the progression of the Gutenberg galaxy were the first soft cover books in the 1960's. They have replaced former hard cover printings and their main advantage was the lower price. Around the year 2000 a very important milestone was reached, which is the internet. From now on it's possible to store a digital copy of a book in the cloud and – very important – do a fulltext search in the content. This results into today's information age in which classical books have become obsolete.
All the invention from 1500 until today have lowered the costs of distribution knowledge. It's easier than ever to write, print and reproduce information. This is equal to flood the Gutenberg universe with more content. A look back into the past shows, that not the invention of the computer, nor the electric light was the most important invention, but the supporting technologies of the Gutenberg age can be understand as the tipping point. Without the distribution of books, it would not be possible to discuss biology, literature, mathematics or engineering.
The interesting point is, that all innovations in the Gutenberg related domain were rejected at the beginning. In the 1960s in which the first soft cover books were published, the criticism were great. Most people doesn't like the new bookformat well and they prefered to spend more money in exchange of a hard-cover book which has a higher quality. The same techno-scepticism is there against the Academia.edu platform which is a breakthrough in distributing academic knowledge. Most researchers doesn't like the idea to upload their pdf paper to a server without paying the former Article processing charge. They don't trust the idea of reducing the costs of knowledge. They fear this will change the world. And all the concerns are correct.
Let us research some behaviors related to the gutenberg galaxy. How does it feels, if somebody buys a soft cover book for a cheaper price but not the hard cover version? How does it feel if somebody buys a newspaper instead of visiting the church at sunday? What is the emotion if somebody uploads a pdf paper to Academia.edu instead of sending the manuscript to a publisher? It feels always bad, it is nothing what looks right. It is something not wanted by society. In all of these cases, the individual user who is doing so stands up of the crowd. He is doing the opposite of what all other are doing. The reason is, that the idea of reducing the costs is something which is equal to make progress. And this is what Luddites are in fear of.
Industrial revolution
Some authors are surprised why the world has made since the 17th century such a dramatic progress and many new inventions were taken during the industrial revolution. The simple explanation is, that the printing press was the basis technology which triggered all the other inventions. If it's possible to copy a book, it is possible to establish a university in which the books are archived in libraries. And if a university is available, students will attend the classes, gets educated and can found new companies which brings economy forward.
Let us imagine an industrial revolution without the printing press. It won't work. Even if a certain genius had invent something, it wouldn't be possible to spread the news to other people. The printing press is some kind information highway which connects all the other development in society. The role of the printing press was overtaken by the Internet. It provides the same service but at lower costs and much faster. To understand the power of Internet technology we have to focus on a technical simple workflow. An author has written a manuscripts and uploads the pdf file to a server. Then the information is indexed by google and all the other users can download the document. They didn't have to pay anything, and they can get the content within seconds. That's the fastest printing press ever invented.
For today's point of view, this simple use case of the internet seems normal, but in the history of mankind it's rare. The first internet flatrates and the first search engines were invented in the year 2000. That means, the described workflow of uploading and download electronic manuscripts was invented only 19 years ago. What would happen if this innovation is active for a longer period of time, for example for 100 years? Yes, it will revolutionize everything. The amount of information will grow, and the number of people which have access to the content as well. What they are doing exactly with this electronic press is unclear, but it will speed up the information exchange.