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It will be interesting to see where this goes. After undergrad and grad school, the amount of times I’ve gone back to hardcopy books or course notes is so tiny
by mathattack 7y ago
It will be interesting to see where this goes. After undergrad and grad school, the amount of times I’ve gone back to hardcopy books or course notes is so tiny that It didn’t justify lugging them around over many moves. (And I love books - prefer bookcases to wallpaper!)
The current model of forcing student to re-buy books that are only marginally updated on an annual basis is wasteful. The real question is will total cost go up or down. I’m ok if Pearson gets more profits if the costs to students goes down, along with complexity to faculty. (Faculty may get less money)
- fapjacks 7y agoAh, but that's the trick of the modern price: It does not ever go down. This isn't grandpa's hardware store. These are scientists working to extract as much money as possible from their "customers" in an industry which already enjoys regulatory capture and oligopoly. It may seem as though the price has gone down, in much the same way that grocery stores claimed prices would go down with their club cards, only to have the prices actually go up across the board -- as well as introducing an invasive data-collection system -- and merely appearing to have gone down when compared to the price without a card. There is no such thing as "money on the table", just big ass companies taking more and more and more because people have no choice. Rent-seeking behavior seems par for the course in today's business world. "Fair price" is an illusion.
- mathattack 7y agoCertainly there’s a monopoly when the professor can mandate that you buy only their book from only once provider. :-)