The only reason people buy those books is that they're required for problem sets (sometimes needing a single-use key for online homework that comes with the boo

The only reason people buy those books is that they're required for problem sets (sometimes needing a single-use key for online homework that comes with the book and costs as much as the book to buy standalone). Universities drive this racket. It's not like we need 15 editions of a book (e.g. University Physics with Modern Physics) to keep up with the fast-moving fields of freshman physics and calculus. When I was in school, people passed around a CD that had all of the books for our major on it. These days there's libgen. There are also plenty of free, legal, high quality sources of material for learning. But you can't really get out of the $100 license to do your homework.