I think the point here is that ideally the prices of those text books
should be cheaper given there are no copies to be printed, no distribution costs, no overhead on inventory management, not to mention the reduction in value caused by the typical yearly version release on some of these texts. There is absolutely no reason a $200 printed book should cost more than half that other than royalty rights and greed.
Whats even more ridiculous are professors who charge $80-$150 for xeroxed-3-hole-punched-shrink-wrapped-self-authored texts.
There is absolutely no reason a release verion 12 of a Physics for Engineering Textbook which is roughly 100 pages more than version 6 costs $150 while version 6 cost $54 when it was new.
Thanks to technical publishers consolidating we've gotten less choice, prices have skyrocketed and professors are rehashing works that didn't need to be rehashed, but offered only as addendums and advanced problem sets/solutions offerings.
They know that only the serious engineering student or physicist would want them and they wouldn't sell much so they bury the product with a fraction of those new problem sets, add some more color and jack up the pricing.
Ironically, Dover Publications has the majority of the best tombs in Science and they are a fraction of the cost of any text book.
Professors should stop recommending version 12 and skip it all together in favor of Dover Publications until the publisher is willing to re-release version 6 and the add-on options.
I'm staring at
Physics for Scientists and Engineers, by Serway and Jewitt, 6th edition. I paid $35 on Amazon for it. The print paper is weaker than version 5. It however offers a whizbang option to get a physics problem solver, online!
Whoopi! Sit down and use a pencil, your grid paper and your brain to learn Physics. When you think a problem solver will be useful it's called Numerical Analysis and you're dealing with 20 x 20 matrices to crunch out FEA/FEM problems for Fluid Flow, Heat Transfer and Fatigue. You're not dealing with it in your lower level physics courseware.
There is no way in hell that Kindle will match the lifespan of this big book.
Then again people continue to drop their iPhones in the crapper because they are that self-absorbed and lack the dexterity to hold the phone while relieving themselves. Apple now offering a replacement for $199 and calling it a common occurrence speaks volumes about Humanity, in general.
