In the novel Gutenberg’s Apprentice, by Alix Christie, the protagonist, Peter Schoeffer, a scribe in the year 1450, is shown a few printed pages, heralding a new age of inexpensive books. His father, a businessman, is excited and is considering investing in this new business of printing books. Printing would mean the end of copying them with pen and ink. He asks how long it would take Peter to scribe a copy of these pages by hand.

Peter not only can scribe manuscripts quite rapidly, but he is proud of his profession as well. It would take him, he says, two days, at most.

His father responds: a half dozen copies can be “printed,” a new word, in the time it takes Peter to scribe one with pen and ink. And in an instant, Peter sees the eventual end of his profession, the profession that created beautiful works of art.

In those few paragraphs is the pattern of a story stretching through today. Computers, the Internet, and countless digital inventions strike down the old, both good and bad. They create the new, both good and bad.

Old beauty was lost, but the ability of anyone who could read to buy books and exchange ideas was born. Though artists learned how to create beauty in printed form, too, something was lost. Something was gained. As it is today.