Gutenberg could make a batch of 300 books for the cost of one

Gutenberg invented the most important technology of the millennium and immediately went bankrupt — and so did the bank that foreclosed on him, and so did his apprentices. Gutenberg could make a batch of 300 books for the cost of one, but there weren't enough buyers in his small, landlocked village in Germany. It it took the better part of a century of further innovations, social changes, and setting up of distribution networks before you could have a pamphlet like Luther's 95 thesis get from Wittenberg to London in 17 days.