But I think everyone since Socrates would agree that it's a good thing someone else wrote down a bunch of the stuff he said.

Right, this same phenomenon is evident in all media -- once it starts to take hold, the only way to effectively critique it, is through the medium itself. Hence, the proverbial Letter to the Editor complaining about the newspaper's content quality; the televised debates over what's on TV these days; the YT videos about the Internet ruining people's brains, etc.