Of course the costs of providing such information to you the reader are also reduced because there is no need for a local library tostore the information. Looking back at the history of science there are many examples of discoveries that were made but not disseminated for years. Incidently this lead to multiple claims to be the first to make discoveries and to various mysteries as to what people actually had discovered. In those days of course science was a mainly amateur activity rather than a profession as now. Similarly it is sometimes the case that major ideas are developed by scientists in different fields to their main ones.
All new technology has unpredictable consequences and the Internet is bound to be no exception.
Bill Unsworth Ph.