Passage:

Historians of technology often describe the printing press as a device that simply multiplied books. A recent historian argues that this description is too mechanical because it treats printing as a neutral amplifier of texts that were already stable. In the historian's account, early printing did not merely reproduce manuscripts more quickly; it changed what counted as a text. Printers standardized spelling, inserted headings, and regularized page layouts, thereby encouraging readers to treat a work as a fixed object rather than a fluid performance that could vary from copy to copy. The historian also notes that printers had incentives to privilege certain versions of a work, since a stable edition made reprints cheaper and disputes easier to manage. Over time, these editorial choices shaped expectations about authorial intent: readers began to assume that differences between copies reflected error, not legitimate variation. The historian concludes that printing altered literary culture not only by increasing access but by redefining the norms of textual authority.

Which choice best states the central idea of the passage?