People who are committed to an older technology fear change. Often they are not willing to admit when the world has passed them by. This is understandable, who wants to recognize that the thing to which one has dedicated one's life is no longer useful. This is true whether you are a scribe, as described by Shirky, a video store owner, or a traditional print journalist. This is clearly where Shirky is aiming his tale.
I found it particularly funny that after Johannes Trithemius, the Abbot of Sponheim writes his impassioned defense of scribes, how does he choose to distribute it? The moveable type, of course! Scribes are too expensive and take too long. The parallel between that and Gladwell writing his attack on social media on a blog is just great. You can't make this stuff up.
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