Invention of paper allowed for ideas to be more easily remembered for future generations and not to disappear or be deformed in a form of oral tradition. It replaced many less convenient materials for writing as stone, leather, wax, papyrus and bamboo. Read all about Chinese papermaking.
Paper is one of the most important inventions to this day. Without paper we would not have education on the level that we have it today, we would not literature, information flow nor many other inventions that make our life easier.
Production of the paper, although it advanced in time, didn’t change too much from the basic principle of how it was made some 2000 years before. Similar materials are used and machines are used for its production instead of hands.