4 ms·

I would agree. After I buy it, it is mine to deal with as I please.

throwaway1979 14y ago
Not necessarily. I was from a modest family in Asia and went to high school (actually, I skipped most of high school as I studied on my own). I remember paying a few thousand rupees for a textbook. Most of these were printed on low quality paper and had soft or generic covers. I never thought that these books were cheap ... until I moved to North America. I noticed many books for my undergad costed over a hundred dollars. They were usually on better stock paper (I mention the paper quality not to justify the price difference but rather to describe to people who may not be familiar with the cheap books). Clearly, the North American textbook prices are higher than developing country prices. Ultimately, I benefited greatly from the cheaper books. I doubt the end result is going to be a net-decrease in the price of books. Rather, some books might become inaccessible by the poor in developing countries. But what about the poor in developed countries, you ask? Hard question to answer.
- drucken 14y ago
  some books might become inaccessible by the poor in developing countries. But what about the poor in developed countries, you ask? Hard question to answer. Isn't the exact reverse more likely? You only ever need one copy of a book to make more copies. All that this could lead to is a (futile) continuation of the trend of US publishers changing versions of a book sold directly in other countries. But developing country cheap copy publishers can just copy a US version and/or a domestic version of the book. So, a "stratification" of books (US version, domestic version + digital versions) will be continue to be available to developing countries and pirates. The real difficulties will be the poor/legal prices in the US. I suspect students photocopying library books will only increase in fashion.
- dougmccune 14y ago
  I'm involved in academic publishing, and this is exactly what will happen. Publishers will simply stop selling the cheaper international versions. Those cheaper prices aren't sustainable, they only exist because the investment in the book is already made up for by the US/first world market. The cheap international pricing is subsidized by the more expensive markets and the international sales don't (historically) cannibalize the US/European sales. If that changes and the international copies flood the US market the international copies will simply stop being created. They aren't (economically) worth doing on their own. You can complain about publishers all you want, but the net result of this change will simply be less affordable textbooks sold to the developing markets. Maybe that's just a short term result and new entrants will figure out how to profitably target the developing world with high quality material, but the short term affect will be a decrease in those low-cost editions sold overseas.
  - WildUtah 14y ago
    That's ideal. What we need is enough schools and teachers with an incentive to contribute to a public domain textbook system. Each contributor should write a good presentation of a specialty or a favorite subject. Then the whole book will be among the best textbooks possible. And the textbook cartel will collapse in the USA and the less developed world while students have better books for free.
  - PeterisP 14y ago
    Outside USA there are more of respectable universities and professors teaching in English than inside USA, and many of the current USA textbooks already involve non-USA authors. The rest of the world is self sufficient, especially in academical sense, and if the current publishers won't serve them well, they can and will immediately make and print own texbooks. They are definitely economically worth doing on their own (every single country is, not to mention, say India+UK together) and afterwards these local publishers will try to export them to USA at prices that would really undercut current ones - so current publishers won't want to rock the boat. European market (for textbooks in Eglish) already uses the international versions due to lack of IP protectionism legal insanity that could prohibit mass import; but all my MBA books were stamped with a wishful statement 'not to be sold in USA/Canada' that carries no legal obligations to anyone here. There is no deficit of high quality material. There is no practical force that would make it difficult to replace any publisher wanting to raise prices here - competition is fierce, there are many alternatives for most subjects, supply is larger than demand; profs can do without the textbook publishers (if really neccessary, without ALL of them) but the textbook publishers need profs to recommend them.

throwaway1979 14y ago

Not necessarily. I was from a modest family in Asia and went to high school (actually, I skipped most of high school as I studied on my own). I remember paying a few thousand rupees for a textbook. Most of these were printed on low quality paper and had soft or generic covers. I never thought that these books were cheap ... until I moved to North America. I noticed many books for my undergad costed over a hundred dollars. They were usually on better stock paper (I mention the paper quality not to justify the price difference but rather to describe to people who may not be familiar with the cheap books). Clearly, the North American textbook prices are higher than developing country prices. Ultimately, I benefited greatly from the cheaper books. I doubt the end result is going to be a net-decrease in the price of books. Rather, some books might become inaccessible by the poor in developing countries. But what about the poor in developed countries, you ask? Hard question to answer.

drucken 14y ago
some books might become inaccessible by the poor in developing countries. But what about the poor in developed countries, you ask? Hard question to answer. Isn't the exact reverse more likely? You only ever need one copy of a book to make more copies. All that this could lead to is a (futile) continuation of the trend of US publishers changing versions of a book sold directly in other countries. But developing country cheap copy publishers can just copy a US version and/or a domestic version of the book. So, a "stratification" of books (US version, domestic version + digital versions) will be continue to be available to developing countries and pirates. The real difficulties will be the poor/legal prices in the US. I suspect students photocopying library books will only increase in fashion.
dougmccune 14y ago
I'm involved in academic publishing, and this is exactly what will happen. Publishers will simply stop selling the cheaper international versions. Those cheaper prices aren't sustainable, they only exist because the investment in the book is already made up for by the US/first world market. The cheap international pricing is subsidized by the more expensive markets and the international sales don't (historically) cannibalize the US/European sales. If that changes and the international copies flood the US market the international copies will simply stop being created. They aren't (economically) worth doing on their own. You can complain about publishers all you want, but the net result of this change will simply be less affordable textbooks sold to the developing markets. Maybe that's just a short term result and new entrants will figure out how to profitably target the developing world with high quality material, but the short term affect will be a decrease in those low-cost editions sold overseas.
- WildUtah 14y ago
  That's ideal. What we need is enough schools and teachers with an incentive to contribute to a public domain textbook system. Each contributor should write a good presentation of a specialty or a favorite subject. Then the whole book will be among the best textbooks possible. And the textbook cartel will collapse in the USA and the less developed world while students have better books for free.
- PeterisP 14y ago
  Outside USA there are more of respectable universities and professors teaching in English than inside USA, and many of the current USA textbooks already involve non-USA authors. The rest of the world is self sufficient, especially in academical sense, and if the current publishers won't serve them well, they can and will immediately make and print own texbooks. They are definitely economically worth doing on their own (every single country is, not to mention, say India+UK together) and afterwards these local publishers will try to export them to USA at prices that would really undercut current ones - so current publishers won't want to rock the boat. European market (for textbooks in Eglish) already uses the international versions due to lack of IP protectionism legal insanity that could prohibit mass import; but all my MBA books were stamped with a wishful statement 'not to be sold in USA/Canada' that carries no legal obligations to anyone here. There is no deficit of high quality material. There is no practical force that would make it difficult to replace any publisher wanting to raise prices here - competition is fierce, there are many alternatives for most subjects, supply is larger than demand; profs can do without the textbook publishers (if really neccessary, without ALL of them) but the textbook publishers need profs to recommend them.