
Before printing, books were copied by hand, making knowledge expensive, scarce, and easy for elites to control. Gutenberg's press shattered that bottleneck. Texts could now be reproduced quickly and consistently, driving down cost and making ideas far easier to spread.
The consequences were explosive: literacy expanded, religious debates intensified, scientific findings circulated faster, and political movements gained new momentum. The printing press did not create modernity by itself, but it supercharged almost every force that did.
Reference:
TaskLoco™ — The Sticky Note GOAT