Comment by latexr

> The average person could not take an idea from conception to a publishable program

Of course they could, they just had to learn how, and that’s the point. There was no “gatekeeping”¹ and there was nothing “undemocratic”² about it. The information was already ample and freely available to all. Those who had the means (a computing device) before have the means now and the opposite isn’t true (you still need access to a computing device to prompt and a server to host the things which need hosting).

¹ You didn’t use that word, but it’s a common argument in these conversations.

² For something to be “democratising”, what came before had to be undemocratic.