Imagine an intellectually curious but poor high schooler: They can't afford to buy journal articles and books; they have almost no option to access serious, quality information. How much potential is lost to this travesty?<p>We've fallen far, far short of the potential and dream of the Internet and the democratization of knowledge, and the state of things has become a norm; few even notice it or realize what they are missing.<p>The truly valuable knowledge, to a great extent, still is inaccessible to the vast majority of the world. It is in books and academic journals. As a simple example beyond Google Books, I was thinking the other day that Safari Books by itself contains much more valuable knowledge (and far less misinformation) on many technical issues than the rest of the Internet; I learn more about some topics in a few hours on Safari Books than in a year on the Internet.<p>Technically, books and journals easily could be made universally accessible, creating an explosion of knowledge and all the things knowledge enables and motivates - the Enlightenment, science, technology, democracy, liberty, prosperity, most of modern civilization, etc. Instead of being well-informed, most of humanity is left with the dregs, and instead of the Internet providing an explosion of knowledge it has created a plague of misinformation and propaganda. IMHO the lack of high quality knowledge also robs the public of the ability to discriminate between good and bad information: Most lack a model of what quality knowledge is, of even the questions to ask (something encountered frequently in serious scholarship). Few even realize the vast gulf between the quality of generally available information and what is in the books and journals. (I'll add that the demise of bookstores means few even see or are aware that the books exist.) And even if they know, it's inaccessible.<p>Instead of embracing a technological revolution in the distribution of information - a turning point in the history of humanity - we have brought forward the model used for the old technology, with distribution as controlled and limited as the old medium of paper. For the most part, it seems like the same few people have the quality information, the professional scholars. Let's not forget and give up; it's too important.