I may have a moral issue with downloading books for free, but I also have a anger issue when I buy textbooks for $230 and at the end of the semester the bookstore want's to buy it back for $50.
I once bought a Chemistry textbook for a summer class for $170, I went to sell it back to the bookstore a month later they wanted to pay $10 because a new edition was about to come out.
What makes me even more angry is that the new edition is 95% the same as the old one, except for the fact that they change the order of the exercises.
The textbook industry is just a big scam IMO. And if they scam me it's not that hard for me convince myself to scam them back too, specially when it's that easy, even when going against my moral principles.
Yeah, but you could always try and buy a used textbook from a student, and pay $50 instead of the original $230, no?
Of course that would be hard. You'd have to find a student which is selling, and then seeing if the book is well preserved.
That's one of the values of having a store. They pay you less because its easy to sell for them. Just the same, you could try and find a student that wants to buy your used book for more money. That's hard tho, and the store knows that, and charges accordingly.
I agree it sucks tho, specially for students who are usually short on money, but its an open market. It's a somewhat similar situation with used games in Madrid.
It's exacerbated by the fact that once a new edition comes out (which can happen every few years) the old versions have much less worth for new students. So you could buy a $50 copy of an old version from an old student, but if it's different enough from the new version then it may be more hassle than its worth (page numbers not matching up, exercises being different etc.).
I once bought a Chemistry textbook for a summer class for $170, I went to sell it back to the bookstore a month later they wanted to pay $10 because a new edition was about to come out.
What makes me even more angry is that the new edition is 95% the same as the old one, except for the fact that they change the order of the exercises.
The textbook industry is just a big scam IMO. And if they scam me it's not that hard for me convince myself to scam them back too, specially when it's that easy, even when going against my moral principles.
Talking about textbooks only.