It would have educated the educated and made possible the filtering down (of biblcal truths) to the uneducated.. Thereby educating them about education.. Which it did.. Many learned to READ just for this purpose of seeking God.. Which LIFTED the great unwashed.. Oh! and a plethora of OTHER reasons..
Do you not pay attention to history at all?
There were not enough Bibles to supply every church; how could they have been given out en masse?
The Church couldn’t keep up on supplying Bibles. How could they have supplied the manpower to translate Scripture into several dozen different languages?