[torstenvl]

Agreed. The printing press is probably the second-most socially transformative development in the history of human kind, right after fire.

Tribalism and feudalism reigned for a millennium from either the death of Theodosius or Odoacer deposing the last emperor, depending on how you measure it. The invention of the printing press in the late 15th century led to an explosion of communication and education.

Perhaps most importantly, it arrived at a time when the Medici-funded artistic and humanist influences were at their peak, allowing those ideas to spread until they led to the Renaissance.

The idea that a new, cheap, fast global network of communication (the Internet) at the same time as a major global cultural moment (the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War) could lead to a flourishing of democracy, humanism, and reason... was not unprecedented. And it's not entirely clear that it failed, either.