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Forums - PC - So why couldn't textbooks be done on a laptop instead of an ipad?

Kasz216 on 24 January 2012
kain_kusanagi said:
Kasz216 said:
kain_kusanagi said:

I'm not going to argue your "facts". I'll take your word for it. While you seem to be content with how things work, I am not.

You say new editions cost less than old editions. I say there is no reason for the new editions to exist unless they are so out of date they can't be used for teaching anymore.

You say text books cost a lot to write and publish. I say they should keep rewriting them when all they need to do is send out companion updates.

We do agree on one thing, high lever classes shouldn't use textbooks. I'll go one further, most classes don't need text books. We don't really need math books. We just need good teachers/professors and printouts. Classes that require heavy reading like History and biology need textbooks but history shouldn't be revised as much as it is and even though new theories and new discoveries add to science they don't fundamentally change their respective areas of study so much that a handout from a professor couldn't correct.

I want to apologies for calling you a contrarian. I still find it flabbergasting that anyone can defend the price of textbooks or educations in general. The cost of a degree shouldn't put a person in debt for the rest of their life.

Who said I was content on how things work?

I'm just telling you WHY things work.  You haven't really offered any solution to how to make them work differently.

If your wondering why New editions are cheaper then old editions... it's because they can print more of them at one time because they will replace most of the earlier edition eventually.

Why they update it so much with the more useless updates?  Imagine trying to run a textbook publishing buisness if you didn't.

If instead of every 2-4 years every textbook you had updated more like every 8-10 years....

How do you keep a consistent buisness running like that?  Your workforce needs would drastically change year to year, as you'd need to print 1 million textbooks one year, then like...  20,000 the next.  You'd be hiring and firing people left and right, have to retrain people...

Sure you could try and stagger your books, but then you lose one major edition... and you'd go bankrupt.

 

E-books, ironically could be the change to that.  Though at the loss of a lot of jobs. 

 

 

 

 

As a consumer I don't care how a business is run. All I care about is quality and price. Right now textbook publishers run things like a racket. They make deals with schools and control distributions. Students have no power in the matter when the schools says you need a new edition and the textbook companies print new ones every year. It's not like other books that come out as hardback, then get released as trade paperbacks and so on. And it's not like other consumer goods that consumers can choose not to buy in favor of a competitor. The school tells them what book to buy and the only choice they have is where to buy it from. The only choice a student has is whether or not to go to school. Any other free markets can't get away with price fixing, but students don't have the same consumer power that keeps business in check in the rest of the retail world.

You want a solution, here it is. Universities stop dictating the book purchases of their students. If students where allowed to buy any edition, within reason, then students would have the power to completely avoid overpriced new editions. The publishers would then be forced to compete with the lower prices of used books and they would get smarter about how they make them and how the publisher them. Like I said I'm a consumer so I don't care if business get bought out by more successful companies or if people get laid off. As a consumer I only care about the product I choose to spend my money on and if I'm getting a good deal.

If you aren't content with the textbook / university industries and how they put unfair burden on students, what are some of your solutions? I make no claim that my ideas are perfect. I'm just saying that the system is broken and should be fixed. I don't care how it's fixed so long as the end result is reasonably priced books and healthy secondary market.


Your solution misses the big picture of the post you replied to... and also is something that can happen?

There isn't stopping anyone from buying old editions, but most people just wouldn't understand old editions/need the different problems and methods in the new editions.

And if they kept the same edition, it wouldn't have anything to do with better companies or layoffs, so much as it being an impossible buisness model to begin with.  Unless the books cost more... not less.

Which would then lead to universities having to publish their own books... and said books ending up MORE expensive despite their losing money.


There is a reason textbook companies took over, when back in the day the colleges handled this stuff themselves.


Here is a helpful breakdown.

http://www.datc.edu/files/datc/departments/bookstore/textbook$.pdf

 

Not as much profit in there as you'd think.