The cheap pen that changed writing forever - BBC Future:

The first ballpoint pens in the UK cost around 55 shillings (£82.50/$107.50 in 2020 prices)," says Curtin. "One of Bic's biros only cost you a shilling. It combined functionality with affordability."

The new pen had an equally dramatic effect on the act of writing itself, says David Sax, the Canadian journalist who wrote the book The Revenge of Analog. "The ballpoint pen was the equivalent of today's smartphone. Before then, writing was a stationary act that had to be done in a certain environment, on a certain kind of desk, with all these other things to hand that allowed you to write.

“What the ballpoint pen did was to make writing something that could happen anywhere. I've written in snow and rain, on the back of an ATV and in a boat at sea and in the middle of the night," says Sax. Biros don't drain batteries, they don't require plugging in in the middle of nowhere, and even the tightest pocket can accommodate them. "It only fails if it runs out of ink," Sax adds.