Did you know how the invention of printing affected the number of sinners in Europe?
Generally, sins are an interesting matter. Now God doesn't exist and nobody fears him (which is unfortunate), but in the early 15th century everyone knew he existed. But back then it was simpler - sins could be redeemed with a ruble.
More precisely - you could buy an indulgence. And what is an indulgence? A piece of paper that says you paid some amount of money. And voilà, sin is redeemed (if only it worked that way now, right?)
But here's what's interesting - the very process of writing these indulgences. Generally they were usually issued in batches. And, believe it or not, were issued at moments when it was necessary to collect large amounts of money. For example, for building St. Peter's Cathedral.
And these indulgences cost, by the way, quite a lot. So much so that neither you nor I would probably have enough money to buy one. Why?
Because before the 15th century, indulgences were forms where you could write in a name and, actually, the sin. And what needs to be done to create a hundred forms? You need to take a person who knows how to write (and there were only about five of those). And make them reproduce this form by hand.
And the ability to write was quite a unique skill for that time, so such a person's work was very expensive. And the scribes themselves weren't in any particular hurry for obvious reasons.
Everyone was happy until some guy appeared in the sinful city of Mainz who invented printing. And, interestingly, he practiced precisely by printing indulgences - quite the 15th-century marketer. It was precisely the printing of indulgences that influenced German printing fonts of those times - their task was to "copy" the handwritten monastic script.
Well, and since you could print a hundred of these papers in a day, their price dropped sharply. And here everyone became unhappy - the church wasn't getting enough cash flow. Sinners also showed up and thought - yesterday I stole 100 rubles and redeemed the sin for 150. But Vasya today redeemed the same thing for 5 - not right!
So indulgences gradually faded into oblivion. Well, and most angry about the large number of laundered sinners was a certain Martin Luther (since abuse of cheap indulgences was precisely in Germany, native to both Gutenberg and Luther). So angry that he wrote 95 theses.