Yes, that's why Microsoft has been consigned to the dustbin of history - the free market panacea!
<mischevious grin/>
Re:in other news "target subpoenas pepsi"
on
AMD Subpoenas Skype
·
· Score: 1
These all-too-common Slashdot analogies are just about always wrong, and this is no exception. (I have made the same mistake, by the way)
The question here is the whether Intel violated the Sherman anti-trust act.
The legal filing joins a long list of subpoenas AMD has filed in search of evidence that Intel has used its dominant market share of x86 PC and server processors to prevent AMD from winning business with certain partners. Intel has denied those accusations, and the companies are preparing for an antitrust trial that promises to reveal loads of details about the inner workings of the PC industry.
And no, I'm not going to provide a counter-analogy. I'm sure we're all smart enough to come up with one of our own.
This is indeed a very, very good explanation. You are a terrific communicator. I'll bet the district folks love you. If you get tired of your admin work, you could definitely do technical communication/training.
I also note that you did not once call your clients "idiots," "morons," or the like, which seems to be a significant problem on this thread.
I'm sure it's a nightmare job, but the limited number of school admins I've encountered have not been up to the task.
In one school district, the principals of each school got Windows laptops which were completely locked down. When one principal asked them to install an 802.11 card, she was told she wasn't allowed one because it was a security risk. This is the same district that turns OFF the mail server at night and weekends for security purposes. Heck, why not leave it off all the time, then?
In another, much smaller school district, users can't access the site for Bridge Construction Set - it's blocked by the NetNanny because it's a "gaming site." Because games and learning are mutually exclusive, of course.
I'm sure there are school IT admins who do it because they like working with students and teachers, or for the love of working in education. But for what school districts pay, if they're not doing it for the love of the job, or of the students, they are probably not up to the task.
Caveat - this is my limited experience, and there are exceptions to every rule. So if you're the exception to the rule, please don't take offense./puts on flame-retardant suit
I agree, Jane. If a Slashdot post, Usenet posting, or distribution list is so poorly written that it pains me, I just ignore it. If someone doesn't respect me enough to take the most basic care, I don't feel the need to read their thoughts. Their thoughts are invariably as sloppy as their mechanics.
Now, I'm not a pedant - I'm talking about posts that don't use any capital letters- very rarely use punctuation, and string half-baked thoughts together like popcorn on a Christmas tree. I'm not talking about people who make mistakes -that's all of us. I'm talking about people who don't care that they make 20 mistakes in a single post/email.
Too right. One of the words that has suffered from this linquistic drift is "unique," which in English means "one of a kind." Now, we Americans, (and possibly Brits, I don't know) often use this word to mean "unusual," "cool," or "neat-o." I actually heard a commercial the other day describing something as "unique and one-of-a-kind."
It's very frustrating.
I don't care that language changes - I'm a descriptivist. I care that language becomes less useful and less precise. We already have lots of words to mean "unusual," but few that mean "unique." Now we have to say "one-of-a-kind," which the folks will probably start using to mean "unusual."
Now, if someone had even a passing familarity with Latin, she would know that the prefix "uni" means "one," and that "unique" probably means, "one-of-a-kind," not "cool." That's the argument the Classicists would make, at least.
I have to echo others' comments here. The HP we have at work MUST HAVE the 160MB "driver" software in order to work at all. Although I'll bet the driver itself, wherever it's located in that package, is tiny.
Until recently, you couldn't even download the drivers - you had to order a CD with the software on it. (No longer, though)
HP's scanner software is ridiculous bloatware - I can't even begin to fathom why they need 160MB of code to drive the scanner.
If you can get the crappy, buggy, bloated software to work, they scan beautifully. Don't bother. Go with Epson (software is not great, but much better than HP) or Canon.
Oh, come on! That's just silly. Bad things happen in the world that aren't caused by greed. And just because any given theoretical problem could be solved with unlimited resources doesn't mean that we should spend unlimited resources solving that problem.
Telcos don't do what you suggest because: 1.) It would be expensive to consumers 2.) It would be VERY confusing for consumers, most of whom don't even know that their cell phones are actually radios 3.) The benefit to consumers would be very slight. Relays would do nothing for situations like NOLA or southern Mississippi because of chokepoints. Relaying would only work if ONE tower went down, not if ALL of them go down, or if EVERYONE wants to use the phone. Thus: 4.) Consumers don't want it
There are lots of radios designed for point-to-point contact. You can go to Target or Tesco or whatever store you've got where you live and pick up a couple.
We have a couple at my house just for such situations, and all of the offices at my work have one for the same reason. I'll bet you have some too, dontcha, vik?
Cell service is a different model, and the cost to consumers of implementing a peer to peer system would be quite high, I imagine. I don't want this service (I've got my radio, remember) and I don't want to pay for my cell phone to function like a traditional radio. I certainly don't want to talk my mom through a peer to peer cell phone call either. Phew!
Not EVERYTHING is the fault of the EEEVIL corporations. But cell phone companies do suck. I'll give you that.
Any time Slashdot reports on a story about tech being provided to a third world area or a disaster site, someone chimes in and says "Hey! They need Food/Water/Medicine, not Cell Phones!"
The Red Cross and other agencies aren't making a choice between providing communications and providing relief supplies. Every relief channel they've got is completely filled up, probably all the way back to Memphis/Houston/Atlanta (or other cities - I don't know which ones they're using), with more coming in to those staging centers every day.
Communication is vital to people there - and far from frivolous. I have a friend who still hasn't heard from her family in Southern Mississippi.
Does anyone else wonder why Slashdot editors seem to have it in for blogs? Is it because in Internet years, Slashdot is as old and sclerotic as the Dinomedia? Is Slashdot the Dinomedia of the new media?
Does anyone else consider it ironic that the Slashdot editorship HATES blogs, but Slashdot is actually a blog?
The real problem here is that the person who selects the book isn't making a purchasing decision, so the book market doesn't obey the laws of price competition. I'd argue that if the publishers had to compete on price, they'd find a way to make prices lower. I believe you have cut to the chase. I wish I had included this point in my original post. What would happen if students VOTED on the adoptions? Boy would we see a difference!
It's the same problem with third-party medical payment systems (specifically HMOs) Service sucks, and prices are sky high.
And professors don't pay attention to the costs, either. Some do pay attention to cost, but not many. A few are so concerned that they wont change editions and force publishers to custom publish the old edition! (And the publishers do it for REALLY HUGE adoptions)
My point:while prof's may give away their copy of a freebie text, they're sheltered from pricing info because of these free gifts. That is an effect that definitely breaks in favor of the publisher: one freebie earns 10-1000 captive sales. Calling professors slimy without admitting publisher's self-interest in all those freebies is the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it? I'm not in the industry, but the feeling I get from talking to them is that they really HATE the sample/desk copy problem, but they don't know how to fix it. They're afraid that if they stop giving away free copies to profs, they'll be locked out.
I appreciate that you know the difference between materials that are valued as a function of their material costs and intrinsic utility (automobiles) and media, the value of which isn't really in the medium itself. Lots of people in this thread aren't able to grasp that.
Information vendors all share the same problem. The structure of the textbook industry is even more difficult because of: 1. The density and ubiquity of the used book industry. 2. The non-consumer driven nature of the market. (the people who BUY the book don't choose the book) 3.) The culture of entitlement that they themselves have allowed to grow up in universities. (desk copies, sample copies, software, ancillaries, etc..)
The publishers are not blameless. My objective was just to set out the publishers' perspective and let students know that the used book industry is a big part of the problem.
I would fisk this, but do I really need to? A law student with a low four-digit user number should be able to do much, much, much better. Car companies have trouble selling intangible information
The original publisher bought the right to publish from an author -- the publisher didn't produce any information either.
Publishers have to find authors (a surprisingly difficult task), advance them money for manuscripts, fact-check (or problem-check) everything, edit manuscripts, typeset manuscripts, send texts for multiple expensive professional reviews, get the final text printed, provide supplements, web sites, custom publication, and service to professors.
Publishers could thus do better by creating textbooks that last longer and become obsolete slower. This would increase the value of their textbooks and allow them to charge more. Theoretically - yes. But I doubt there is much room on the UPSIDE of the market right now. Prices are already way too high, IMO.
Fair enough, but I'm not sure how you can draw a distinction between people who directly sell their own textbooks to other students and those who go through a middleman--a student co-op or an organized used-book reseller My problem with the used booksellers is that they are unethical in the extreme and their margins are much larger than is typical for brokering. They buy books from profs who got them for free. This is a common and widespread industry practice.
I like co-ops because they cut out the scumbags.
Incidentally, I would encourage you to consider the hypothetical case where it wasn't possible to reuse/resell textbooks. Would that actually result in lower prices, or would it just lead to higher publisher profits? Perhaps you are right. But the industry would have no excuse for their prices and there might be a revolt. Now they can point at the used book dealers as a scapegoat. (A scapegoat that deserves the goating, no less)
Publishers of textbooks would then be in a market where there was essentially no price elasticity to demand--students require textbooks, and textbooks are not readily interchangeable (they're not a commodity good). The professors who assign the textbooks get their copies for free from the publisher, and are probably less price-sensitive anyway (they have a higher income)--there's no motivation to select a textbook based on price. This is essentially the current situation - there is very little price elasticity.
Identical textbooks are sold for different prices in different countries, presumably for the purpose of maximizing profit by charging what each local market will bear. (I understand that a lot of students in the UK purchase textbooks online from North American resellers for precisely this reason. One mitigating factor - books for the UK market do have to be localized (localised?) But you are essentially correct there. I don't know about publishers' specific pricing strategies, but I assume that you are essentially correct. Much like software production, the incremental cost of publishing a copy is very low. So price discrimination makes a lot of sense.
If there were no alternate source of books, would publishers decide out of the kindness of their hearts to be happy with a "reasonable" profit and lower the unit price? No, they wouldn't. But profs do actually listen to their students sometimes. If one maverick company came out with a book that cost 50% less, students would ask the prof to adopt that book.
Hey, that would probably work even with used books. Hmm..
First of all - thank you for that reasoned, helpful response. I knew there was a reason I keep coming back to Slashdot.
perhaps publishers should be less willing to give away copies of their textbooks.
That is, of course, the solution this particular problem. It's a chicken-egg problem. In order to compete, they think they have to do it. If they all agreed not to do it, would that be illegal? I don't know, but I know they don't do it because they're afraid the other guy will capture market share.
Publishers, perhaps, should charge for these services something close to what they actually cost, eh? This sounds like a razor-blade economic model: test-bank razors supported by textbook razor blades.
Excellent idea. The problem is this: academic departments don't get budgets for this particular expense, because textbook publishers have always provided them as part of the adoption. So it would require universities to change. Ironically, universities are some of the least flexible institutions in our society. But it SHOULD work this way.
You know that if a textbook contains information a student finds useful then the student will keep it, yes?
Ideally, yes. I kept a bunch of my textbooks as well. But students typically don't value general-ed courses that they really should value (For USians, American History to 1877, for example), so they don't value the books.... the used-car industry is essentially a giant leech on the butt of the [new car industry]. They're selling all the design experimentation and engineering expertise invested by the auto manufacturer.
Of course, the usefulness & value of a car are significantly diminished by its being used. A textbook's usefulness isn't diminished at all. It retains its value as a result of its usefulness, which is strictly a function of the information it contains, and has almost nothing to do with the actual media.
I have no problem with people selling their own books. But I believe the current system is bad for students and really tough for authors. I contend that publishers are getting more than their fair share of blame. That's all I'm sayin'.
Yes, forced expiration would really, really suck. But RTA. You don't HAVE TO buy the DRM version. You can still buy the dead-tree version.
I agree that selling your textbooks is contrary to the premise of "lifelong learning" but most students don't care at all about a class after their final. If you're just going to sell back the book anyway...
As full disclosure, a member of my family works for a book publisher. I don't speak for anyone or any company. I just speak for my own opinionated self.
There is no doubt that the cost of textbooks is completely unreasonable. While the publishing industry has to take its share of the blame for that, the publishing companies have several difficult problems to get around when trying to make a profit selling intangible information.
First, and slimiest, are professors that sell free examination copies to used booksellers. Sometimes profs order exam copies JUST to sell them to the itinerant bookbuyers. (These are the guys you see wheeling a big case on wheels around your profs' offices, flush with cash) This is completely unethical, but widespread.
Second are used book distributors. Profs expect a lot of support for these expensive books. They need desk copies, supplements, web site support, test banks, etcetera. The publisher has to support the book in use, even if the students are buying used text books. The used book dealer provides NONE OF THIS. They only value they add is storing the book during school breaks and driving it from one place to another.
So for an edition that comes out once every three years, the publisher has ONE CHANCE to make a profit - the first all-new run of the edition. Everything else (packaging with extra materials, sell-through, custom pub) is a rearguard action to try to stay afloat until the next edition.
You see, the value in the book isn't in the part that the used-book dealer sells. He's selling information that he didn't produce, support, or add to at all. The used book industry is essentially a giant leech on the butt of textbook publishers.
If there were NO used book industry, or if there were some sort of royalty paid for each resale, most textbooks could be almost as cheap as trade books.
Also, publishers don't like book coops, but don't mind them nearly as much. Because students sell to each other and there much less exam copy corruption.
DRM might be a fair way around this, but the DRMed e-book should be cheaper than a used book, IMO. It only makes sense that if there's NO resale value, that you should only pay for the info, not the media + resale value. To those that suggest they should sell DRM-free e-books, that's simply suicide. Let's be realistic - 90% of college students are not going to pay for a book they can just copy. My relative has seen students photocopying entire textbooks. (Even though the cost of copying was close to the cost of a new book.)
Publishers definitely need to step it up and figure out a way to make a better, cheaper product. They are a very old and traditional industry. (some might say hidebound) But they are generally good people trying to do good work. They will eventually adapt, authors will get paid, and prices will go down, one way or the other.
I feel I should clarify. Our faculty are really brilliant, and there are certainly some that know what ports are. It's just that JOE Faculty doens't know how to open ports - which is a good thing.
And JACK Faculty, who knows Macs, knows how to keep his Mac secure. So there's that.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, that's why Microsoft has been consigned to the dustbin of history - the free market panacea!
/>
<mischevious grin
The question here is the whether Intel violated the Sherman anti-trust act.
And no, I'm not going to provide a counter-analogy. I'm sure we're all smart enough to come up with one of our own.
This is indeed a very, very good explanation. You are a terrific communicator. I'll bet the district folks love you. If you get tired of your admin work, you could definitely do technical communication/training.
I also note that you did not once call your clients "idiots," "morons," or the like, which seems to be a significant problem on this thread.
I'm sure it's a nightmare job, but the limited number of school admins I've encountered have not been up to the task.
/puts on flame-retardant suit
In one school district, the principals of each school got Windows laptops which were completely locked down. When one principal asked them to install an 802.11 card, she was told she wasn't allowed one because it was a security risk. This is the same district that turns OFF the mail server at night and weekends for security purposes. Heck, why not leave it off all the time, then?
In another, much smaller school district, users can't access the site for Bridge Construction Set - it's blocked by the NetNanny because it's a "gaming site." Because games and learning are mutually exclusive, of course.
I'm sure there are school IT admins who do it because they like working with students and teachers, or for the love of working in education. But for what school districts pay, if they're not doing it for the love of the job, or of the students, they are probably not up to the task.
Caveat - this is my limited experience, and there are exceptions to every rule. So if you're the exception to the rule, please don't take offense.
I agree, Jane. If a Slashdot post, Usenet posting, or distribution list is so poorly written that it pains me, I just ignore it. If someone doesn't respect me enough to take the most basic care, I don't feel the need to read their thoughts. Their thoughts are invariably as sloppy as their mechanics.
Now, I'm not a pedant - I'm talking about posts that don't use any capital letters- very rarely use punctuation, and string half-baked thoughts together like popcorn on a Christmas tree. I'm not talking about people who make mistakes -that's all of us. I'm talking about people who don't care that they make 20 mistakes in a single post/email.
Too right. One of the words that has suffered from this linquistic drift is "unique," which in English means "one of a kind." Now, we Americans, (and possibly Brits, I don't know) often use this word to mean "unusual," "cool," or "neat-o." I actually heard a commercial the other day describing something as "unique and one-of-a-kind."
It's very frustrating.
I don't care that language changes - I'm a descriptivist. I care that language becomes less useful and less precise. We already have lots of words to mean "unusual," but few that mean "unique." Now we have to say "one-of-a-kind," which the folks will probably start using to mean "unusual."
Now, if someone had even a passing familarity with Latin, she would know that the prefix "uni" means "one," and that "unique" probably means, "one-of-a-kind," not "cool." That's the argument the Classicists would make, at least.
I have to echo others' comments here. The HP we have at work MUST HAVE the 160MB "driver" software in order to work at all. Although I'll bet the driver itself, wherever it's located in that package, is tiny.
Until recently, you couldn't even download the drivers - you had to order a CD with the software on it. (No longer, though)
HP's scanner software is ridiculous bloatware - I can't even begin to fathom why they need 160MB of code to drive the scanner.
If you can get the crappy, buggy, bloated software to work, they scan beautifully. Don't bother. Go with Epson (software is not great, but much better than HP) or Canon.
Oh, come on! That's just silly. Bad things happen in the world that aren't caused by greed. And just because any given theoretical problem could be solved with unlimited resources doesn't mean that we should spend unlimited resources solving that problem.
Telcos don't do what you suggest because:
1.) It would be expensive to consumers
2.) It would be VERY confusing for consumers, most of whom don't even know that their cell phones are actually radios
3.) The benefit to consumers would be very slight. Relays would do nothing for situations like NOLA or southern Mississippi because of chokepoints. Relaying would only work if ONE tower went down, not if ALL of them go down, or if EVERYONE wants to use the phone.
Thus:
4.) Consumers don't want it
There are lots of radios designed for point-to-point contact. You can go to Target or Tesco or whatever store you've got where you live and pick up a couple.
We have a couple at my house just for such situations, and all of the offices at my work have one for the same reason. I'll bet you have some too, dontcha, vik?
Cell service is a different model, and the cost to consumers of implementing a peer to peer system would be quite high, I imagine. I don't want this service (I've got my radio, remember) and I don't want to pay for my cell phone to function like a traditional radio. I certainly don't want to talk my mom through a peer to peer cell phone call either. Phew!
Not EVERYTHING is the fault of the EEEVIL corporations. But cell phone companies do suck. I'll give you that.
Any time Slashdot reports on a story about tech being provided to a third world area or a disaster site, someone chimes in and says "Hey! They need Food/Water/Medicine, not Cell Phones!"
The Red Cross and other agencies aren't making a choice between providing communications and providing relief supplies. Every relief channel they've got is completely filled up, probably all the way back to Memphis/Houston/Atlanta (or other cities - I don't know which ones they're using), with more coming in to those staging centers every day.
Communication is vital to people there - and far from frivolous. I have a friend who still hasn't heard from her family in Southern Mississippi.
Does anyone else wonder why Slashdot editors seem to have it in for blogs? Is it because in Internet years, Slashdot is as old and sclerotic as the Dinomedia? Is Slashdot the Dinomedia of the new media?
Does anyone else consider it ironic that the Slashdot editorship HATES blogs, but Slashdot is actually a blog?
Anyone else getting tired of these questions?
Thanks for rising to that entirely too-snarky challenge. That was uncalled for and I apologize.
d =13291116
You make a good point about used products. Here is my answer to essentially the same question on another sub-thread:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=158567&ci
The real problem here is that the person who selects the book isn't making a purchasing decision, so the book market doesn't obey the laws of price competition. I'd argue that if the publishers had to compete on price, they'd find a way to make prices lower.
I believe you have cut to the chase. I wish I had included this point in my original post. What would happen if students VOTED on the adoptions? Boy would we see a difference!
It's the same problem with third-party medical payment systems (specifically HMOs) Service sucks, and prices are sky high.
And professors don't pay attention to the costs, either.
Some do pay attention to cost, but not many. A few are so concerned that they wont change editions and force publishers to custom publish the old edition! (And the publishers do it for REALLY HUGE adoptions)
My point:while prof's may give away their copy of a freebie text, they're sheltered from pricing info because of these free gifts. That is an effect that definitely breaks in favor of the publisher: one freebie earns 10-1000 captive sales. Calling professors slimy without admitting publisher's self-interest in all those freebies is the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it?
I'm not in the industry, but the feeling I get from talking to them is that they really HATE the sample/desk copy problem, but they don't know how to fix it. They're afraid that if they stop giving away free copies to profs, they'll be locked out.
I appreciate that you know the difference between materials that are valued as a function of their material costs and intrinsic utility (automobiles) and media, the value of which isn't really in the medium itself. Lots of people in this thread aren't able to grasp that.
Information vendors all share the same problem. The structure of the textbook industry is even more difficult because of:
1. The density and ubiquity of the used book industry.
2. The non-consumer driven nature of the market. (the people who BUY the book don't choose the book)
3.) The culture of entitlement that they themselves have allowed to grow up in universities. (desk copies, sample copies, software, ancillaries, etc..)
The publishers are not blameless. My objective was just to set out the publishers' perspective and let students know that the used book industry is a big part of the problem.
Agreed. They definitely need to change.
Wha?
I would fisk this, but do I really need to? A law student with a low four-digit user number should be able to do much, much, much better.
Car companies have trouble selling intangible information
?!
Come on. Try again.
The original publisher bought the right to publish from an author -- the publisher didn't produce any information either.
Publishers have to find authors (a surprisingly difficult task), advance them money for manuscripts, fact-check (or problem-check) everything, edit manuscripts, typeset manuscripts, send texts for multiple expensive professional reviews, get the final text printed, provide supplements, web sites, custom publication, and service to professors.
Publishers could thus do better by creating textbooks that last longer and become obsolete slower. This would increase the value of their textbooks and allow them to charge more.
Theoretically - yes. But I doubt there is much room on the UPSIDE of the market right now. Prices are already way too high, IMO.
Fair enough, but I'm not sure how you can draw a distinction between people who directly sell their own textbooks to other students and those who go through a middleman--a student co-op or an organized used-book reseller
My problem with the used booksellers is that they are unethical in the extreme and their margins are much larger than is typical for brokering. They buy books from profs who got them for free. This is a common and widespread industry practice.
I like co-ops because they cut out the scumbags.
Incidentally, I would encourage you to consider the hypothetical case where it wasn't possible to reuse/resell textbooks. Would that actually result in lower prices, or would it just lead to higher publisher profits?
Perhaps you are right. But the industry would have no excuse for their prices and there might be a revolt. Now they can point at the used book dealers as a scapegoat. (A scapegoat that deserves the goating, no less)
Publishers of textbooks would then be in a market where there was essentially no price elasticity to demand--students require textbooks, and textbooks are not readily interchangeable (they're not a commodity good). The professors who assign the textbooks get their copies for free from the publisher, and are probably less price-sensitive anyway (they have a higher income)--there's no motivation to select a textbook based on price.
This is essentially the current situation - there is very little price elasticity.
Identical textbooks are sold for different prices in different countries, presumably for the purpose of maximizing profit by charging what each local market will bear. (I understand that a lot of students in the UK purchase textbooks online from North American resellers for precisely this reason.
One mitigating factor - books for the UK market do have to be localized (localised?) But you are essentially correct there. I don't know about publishers' specific pricing strategies, but I assume that you are essentially correct. Much like software production, the incremental cost of publishing a copy is very low. So price discrimination makes a lot of sense.
If there were no alternate source of books, would publishers decide out of the kindness of their hearts to be happy with a "reasonable" profit and lower the unit price?
No, they wouldn't. But profs do actually listen to their students sometimes. If one maverick company came out with a book that cost 50% less, students would ask the prof to adopt that book.
Hey, that would probably work even with used books. Hmm..
First of all - thank you for that reasoned, helpful response. I knew there was a reason I keep coming back to Slashdot.
... the used-car industry is essentially a giant leech on the butt of the [new car industry]. They're selling all the design experimentation and engineering expertise invested by the auto manufacturer.
perhaps publishers should be less willing to give away copies of their textbooks.
That is, of course, the solution this particular problem. It's a chicken-egg problem. In order to compete, they think they have to do it. If they all agreed not to do it, would that be illegal? I don't know, but I know they don't do it because they're afraid the other guy will capture market share.
Publishers, perhaps, should charge for these services something close to what they actually cost, eh? This sounds like a razor-blade economic model: test-bank razors supported by textbook razor blades.
Excellent idea. The problem is this: academic departments don't get budgets for this particular expense, because textbook publishers have always provided them as part of the adoption. So it would require universities to change. Ironically, universities are some of the least flexible institutions in our society. But it SHOULD work this way.
You know that if a textbook contains information a student finds useful then the student will keep it, yes?
Ideally, yes. I kept a bunch of my textbooks as well. But students typically don't value general-ed courses that they really should value (For USians, American History to 1877, for example), so they don't value the books.
Of course, the usefulness & value of a car are significantly diminished by its being used. A textbook's usefulness isn't diminished at all. It retains its value as a result of its usefulness, which is strictly a function of the information it contains, and has almost nothing to do with the actual media.
I have no problem with people selling their own books. But I believe the current system is bad for students and really tough for authors. I contend that publishers are getting more than their fair share of blame. That's all I'm sayin'.
Yes, forced expiration would really, really suck. But RTA. You don't HAVE TO buy the DRM version. You can still buy the dead-tree version.
I agree that selling your textbooks is contrary to the premise of "lifelong learning" but most students don't care at all about a class after their final. If you're just going to sell back the book anyway...
As full disclosure, a member of my family works for a book publisher. I don't speak for anyone or any company. I just speak for my own opinionated self.
There is no doubt that the cost of textbooks is completely unreasonable. While the publishing industry has to take its share of the blame for that, the publishing companies have several difficult problems to get around when trying to make a profit selling intangible information.
First, and slimiest, are professors that sell free examination copies to used booksellers. Sometimes profs order exam copies JUST to sell them to the itinerant bookbuyers. (These are the guys you see wheeling a big case on wheels around your profs' offices, flush with cash) This is completely unethical, but widespread.
Second are used book distributors. Profs expect a lot of support for these expensive books. They need desk copies, supplements, web site support, test banks, etcetera. The publisher has to support the book in use, even if the students are buying used text books. The used book dealer provides NONE OF THIS. They only value they add is storing the book during school breaks and driving it from one place to another.
So for an edition that comes out once every three years, the publisher has ONE CHANCE to make a profit - the first all-new run of the edition. Everything else (packaging with extra materials, sell-through, custom pub) is a rearguard action to try to stay afloat until the next edition.
You see, the value in the book isn't in the part that the used-book dealer sells. He's selling information that he didn't produce, support, or add to at all. The used book industry is essentially a giant leech on the butt of textbook publishers.
If there were NO used book industry, or if there were some sort of royalty paid for each resale, most textbooks could be almost as cheap as trade books.
Also, publishers don't like book coops, but don't mind them nearly as much. Because students sell to each other and there much less exam copy corruption.
DRM might be a fair way around this, but the DRMed e-book should be cheaper than a used book, IMO. It only makes sense that if there's NO resale value, that you should only pay for the info, not the media + resale value. To those that suggest they should sell DRM-free e-books, that's simply suicide. Let's be realistic - 90% of college students are not going to pay for a book they can just copy. My relative has seen students photocopying entire textbooks. (Even though the cost of copying was close to the cost of a new book.)
Publishers definitely need to step it up and figure out a way to make a better, cheaper product. They are a very old and traditional industry. (some might say hidebound) But they are generally good people trying to do good work. They will eventually adapt, authors will get paid, and prices will go down, one way or the other.
In the east (and Kansas City)- yes.
In the wide open west, our states are big enough to contain our cities, thankyouverymuch.
What a delightful piece of Mac history. Thanks for that.
First of all, he's 59 years old.
/pedantry
Second, you can call a little boy "mister" or preferably, "master."
Third, calling someone "SoAndSo-san" while you're otherwise speaking English sounds really stupid to people who actually speak Japanese.
Finally, you wouldn't use san for a little boy either. You'd call him kun or possibly , chan.
I feel I should clarify. Our faculty are really brilliant, and there are certainly some that know what ports are. It's just that JOE Faculty doens't know how to open ports - which is a good thing.
And JACK Faculty, who knows Macs, knows how to keep his Mac secure. So there's that.
Umm.
Trust me. I love Joe Faculty - he's my buddy. A little testy at times, as geniuses can be.
But he doens't know where the firewall settings are. Or what a firewall is. Or what a port is. Really.