Ong here points to a basic fact about print culture. Printed 
books, themselves the first uniform, repeatable, and mass-
produced items in the world, provided endless paradigms of 
uniform commodity culture for sixteenth and succeeding 
centuries. Shakespeare makes frequent play with this fact as in 
King John  (II,i):

          That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling Commodity, 
          Commodity, the bias of the world—
          The world, who of itself is peised well, 
          Made to run even upon even ground 
          Till this advantage, this vile drawing bias, 
          This sway of motion, this Commodity, 
          Makes it take head from all indifferency, 
          From all direction, purpose, course, intent— 
          And this same bias, this Commodity,