The near future of the web is tied up with the logic of present media practice, and the logic of present media practice dates back to Gutenberg’s invention of movable type in the mid-1400s. The problem Gutenberg introduced into intellectual life was abundance: once typesetting was perfected, a copy of a book could be created faster than it could be read. Figuring out which books were worth reading, and which weren’t, became one of the defining problems of the literate.This abundance of new writing thus introduced a new risk as well: the risk of variable quality. A Bible was valuable, almost by definition. But a new work of fiction? Printing a book would incur considerable costs, but who knew if it would be appreciated until after the expense had been incurred? The tension between expensive production and the risk of failure led to a solution, provisional as all technological solutions are: let the people who own the means of production make the editorial judgments. There was no obvious link between the ability to operate a press and sound judgment about quality, but those two functions were nevertheless fused by economics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/18/internet-future
From ‘why?’ to ‘why not?’ The web is the biggest media revolution since the printing press, says Clay Shirky
The near future of the web is tied up with the logic of present media practice, and the logic of present media practice dates back to Gutenberg’s invention of movable type in the mid-1400s. The problem Gutenberg introduced into intellectual life was abundance: once typesetting was perfected, a copy of a book could be created faster than it could be read. Figuring out which books were worth reading, and which weren’t, became one of the defining problems of the literate.