Korea developed movable metal type decades before Gutenberg, yet its impact remained limited by technical constraints, elite literacy, and centralized state control. In Europe, Gutenberg’s more efficient printing system emerged alongside growing literacy, commercial markets, universities, and political decentralization, allowing printed knowledge to spread rapidly and contribute to the Renaissance, Reformation, and Scientific Revolution. These contrasting histories show that technological innovation achieves lasting influence not simply by being invented first, but by developing within a society capable of adopting and expanding it.