We Rent Movies, So Why Not Textbooks? 398
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Soulskill
from the or-food dept.
from the or-food dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Using Netflix as a business model, Osman Rashid and Aayush Phumbhra founded Chegg, shorthand for 'chicken and egg,' to gather books from sellers at the end of a semester and renting — or sometimes selling — them to other students at the start of a new one. Chegg began renting books in 2007, before it owned any, so when an order came in, its employees would surf the Web to find a cheap copy. They would buy the book using Rashid's American Express card and have it shipped to the student. Eventually, Chegg automated the system. 'People thought we were crazy,' Rashid said. Now, as Chegg prepares for its third academic year in the textbook rental business, the business is growing rapidly. Jim Safka, a former chief executive of Match.com and Ask.com who was recently recruited to run Chegg, said the company's revenue in 2008 was more than $10 million, and this year, Chegg surpassed that in January alone."
because they make new editions to thwart re-use (Score:5, Interesting)
College textbooks have limited re-use because the publishers make new editions strictly of the purpose of obsoleting them so people don't buy used books and are forced (or at least encouraged) to buy new ones instead.
Renting something that only can be used 2-3 times means you end up paying a LOT to rent it. If the company who rents it is to make a profit, they have to charge a significant fraction of the price of the item to rent it.
For example, in the article, $69 (including shipping) to rent a book that retails for $123. You can probably find it used for $85 and sell it again when you are done (for peanuts).
Re:Why the latest edition? (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was in school it was "Here are the homework assignments, they're only in the new version of the textbook". I'm not saying it's in any remote way logical, just that's what they do.
I assume you're talking about the college level.
It's logical alright, it's just ugly. Much of the time, that professor is the person who wrote the textbook. The one they make mandatory for their class. The one they will sell to you, for the low, low price of several times the production costs.
Sometimes what they teach is quite different from what they claim to teach. Yeah the syllabus might talk about physics, or English. The subject taught might be more like "Ok class, for today's lesson I will demonstrate what corruption is and will also touch on the incorrect use of authority. See, it's ugly isn't it? Here's what not to do."
Re:Why the latest edition? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because it presents an additional revenue stream for the professors on staff that write them?
In France you get book loaned or rented (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Editions (Score:3, Interesting)
Also if they want to ask "We Rent Movies, So Why Not Textbooks?" then why not also have public libraries of movies, as its worked for hundreds of years for books. The libraries buy the books and our taxes pay for the libraries so they can buy movies (and music) the same way. After all books don't earn their living from libraries as books are still also sold to fans of the books, so its not as if libraries are the only source of income for books.
So that only leaves the film and music companies not wanting to allow access in libraries and make it so expensive as to be impractical in libraries.
Probably part of their reasoning is the film and music companies try to engineer most peoples consent and acceptance of their high prices and high wages for themselves. (Music especially doesn't cost so much more to produce that a book, other than the over inflated wages many people in that industry have grown accustomed to earning. Its no surprise to find in such an overly attention seeking Histrionic driven industry such as the music industry, that they have such an over inflated and dramatic opinion of its own self worth).
Re:Already been done, and for free (Score:1, Interesting)
My University had the most harebrained systems I have ever seen. Most books could be borrowed and kept for an entire semesters if needed. If you planned ahead you could even order your books so they were available for the start of the semester. One small problem, if someone else ordered it after you would get a letter demanding its return. Didn't matter whether you ordered yourself it or just picked it off the shelf you would have a week to return it. Consequently any book of any use or popularity was never available on the shelf but nobody ever had it for a period of time long enough to actually make use of it.
Unsurprisingly the 2nd hand book store nearby did quite well.
Their costs are your costs. (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't matter how you slice it, the text book industry wants to get their $150/book/semester out of you. They don't really care how they get their income, as long as they get it. They'll either do it by making you buy a new book, which you can keep, or by charging you the same amount for a book that you can rent for the same amount of money, only now you have to turn it in when you're done, instead of having the option to keep it or sell it again.
Re:Editions (Score:5, Interesting)
Editions.
To expand:
I have to teach out of one edition or another. Different editions can have different material, or can have it in different places. I have to test. When I have 4 classes with 200+ students, half of them online (as I have recently), I have to automate the process in order to give grades and feedback in a timely manner. To do that I have to test on one edition, rather than trying to develop tests for several. I spend a great deal of time developing additional instructional material just for the one edition and don;t have time to keep developing tests.
I tell my students that I don't care what edition they use, or indeed if they don't own a book at all. But they are responsible for covering the material in the chosen edition because that's what is tested in content and arrangement. A few take me up on it. Some manage to get an A (though not a perfect score) with a 'wrong' edition if they pay close attention to what's covered rather than just chapter numbers. Some gang up with others and compare books so they can copy the different material for each others' use. Most don't attempt this and go for the chosen edition. I'd make it easier on them all and teach from an older edition, but most sources don't redistribute older editions -- they often don't even buy them back. This one source might help in that respect, but it'll take many doing the same and doing it with older editions to make it possible for me to choose, teach and test from an older one.
Re:Why the latest edition? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You mean racketeering (Score:5, Interesting)
You shouldn't have posted AC, you were actually insightful.
You did forget to mention when the instructor requires that you buy HIS book as required reading for the class, regardless of what ego-fluffing crap he had written. Most, but not all, instructors are teaching because they can't hack it in the real world of their chosen field. I've gotten this both from the instructors and from the idiots who are churned out of various universities who glow over their degree, but can't handle simple functions of their chosen profession. How can you spend years studying something and not have a clue of what you're doing?
For IT work, I'd hire someone who spent 2 years exploring their chosen field at home or at a lower level job and can explain topics in detail, rather than a graduate of a 4 year institution with their warm fuzzy diploma and no clue of how to really do the work.
Honestly, I've hired both, and found it to be more than abundantly true. 2 years of tech school, 4 years of university, or the guy who's installed every distro available just to see how they work?
The self-trained explorer at home turned out to be the best. They'll be more willing to honestly tell me where their weaknesses are, so I can tutor them as problems happen, and they will learn. For example, one guy told me, "Well, I don't know sendmail that well." Fine. It was a webhosting gig, but I generally managed the mail servers. I'd send him notes on my changes, and he'd ask questions. It wasn't long before I'd get notes in saying "I made this change, for this reason" to a primary mail server, and the changes would be correct.
The 2 year tech school grads came in with resumes listing all of our technologies, and telling me they knew their stuff. It was all regular industry stuff. We didn't reinvent the wheel, we simply used the existing technologies to their fullest. I asked about Cisco, and they both said "I successfully passed the Cisco class, I know how to work our equipment". Great. I needed an IP and password set on a new switch, and installed in a DC. I was going to make the rest of the changes before it was really used. It sat on the bench for a week until the first told me "I don't know how." {sigh}. I gave it to the second, who did the same thing. What? If you aren't guided through it by an instructor, you have no clue of how to operate it? It wasn't urgent, but it didn't need to sit idle on the bench for 2 weeks. I never liked leaving equipment in the office, when it could be in the DC ready to use in a pinch. They were trained to pass the tests, not how to practically operate anything. They wasted 2 years of their lives, the tuition money, and two months of my office space.
I handed it off to a guy that said "Well, I never used it, but I'll try.". It took him about an hour, but he did it right and asked me questions on preconfiguring ports for me. Above and beyond. I like that. I didn't want the ports done, I had my own config to lay over it for that. I just needed to be able to access it from the office. :)
Now, when I get to a position where I'm hiring again, my same rules will apply. Great if you have a degree, but you'd better have the practical application of the required technology before I'll consider you. So, a guy sitting at home for 2 years messing with it will always have preference over a guy who sat at a university for 4 years, unless the university guy can also show me that he's had a couple years of hands-on work with it.
It can be a hassle. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why the latest edition? (Score:2, Interesting)
the same way programs require you have service pack 1, or service pack 2 etc. The course material was built around a particular version.
If the student needs to buy a book, there's no reason to not recommend the newest version. New versions exist for a reason, error correction, new information, change in focus etc. all go into making new editions.
Other reasons:
The professor only has the new version. Profs get textbooks for free, usually many more than they will actually use, but publishers only send along the newest versions. (Sometimes they send these to departments rather than individual profs but the effect is the same). I'm now 7 years from finishing my undergrad. If I were to teach a course my choices are: my textbook from 7-11 years ago, which in engineering or the sciences could be irrelevant, or it could make the books antiquated garbage, or I grab the latest edition supplied by the publisher. I'm certainly not going to construct course material (which I hope to reuse next year) based on a 2 or 3 year old book when there's a new one out. That's like those people who are still clinging to office 2003 and complaining about installing office 2007 at universities... the world has moved on (for better or worse), and students don't want to go back and learn office 2003 when they have 2007 on their fancy new laptops.
Using multiple versions takes longer. Section 3.3 in 4th edition may not have been copied verbatim from any section in 3rd edition, and even if it was you have to find it. If it wasn't you need to tell students where equivalent information can be found, assuming it can be, and make sure you aren't using anything from the 4th edition that isn't in the 3rd.
We don't expect you to resell most of your books. Gasp. Looked into a professors office? Most of them are full of textbooks. If we picked it for you we probably figure its useful and you should keep it: Only applies to some courses (usually the more senior ones)
How long do you support an old edition? How long is the new edition going to last. I know when you're a student it feels like there's a new edition of every book every year, but there isn't. Most books last for quite a few years before they put out new versions. So how long do I want to support the old version? It's like software, once gears of war 2 comes out how much support does gears 1 get? If the average life of an edition of a book is 5 or 6 years I could be trying to run two versions in parallel for half the life of the first one, assuming I stay on th course.
From experience with old editions (in general). I TA'd for a guy who used to find stuff in the bargain bin at the bookstore and use that as a textbook. He wanted to keep things cheap for students. Except that a class of 200 people all trying to find the same out of print book becomes a problem, fast. If 3 or 4 weeks into the course students can't get the text you have a serious problem. The last thing you want is to say 'we recommend this $160 textbook, but the $80 prior edition will still work' only to find out 3 weeks in that the class is waiting to get the previous edition.
Lastly, and to be kind of a dick about it, generally universities don't care. You're spending ~7K in tuition (in canada) + ~12K living expenses for the 8 months you're with us at school. Wasting time fussing over differents versions of textbooks which only barely flutter in top 2 or 3% of that doesnt' register on anyones radar. It should, but it doesn't. That's all out of hte disposable income, which is a tight resource, but we don't want to let you disadvantage yourself by pleading poverty. If everyone else is using the 9th edition and you're on the 8th you're probably making life harder for yourself, and for us, and we don't care that much. Maybe universities should, but they're more worried about making sure tuition doesn't end up like it does in the US, and making sure there is someone to teach your class and that they're getting research done, and money brought in so they can pay grad students who will TA your course.
Re:Editions (Score:3, Interesting)
Never bought a college text until senior year (Score:2, Interesting)
It wasn't until my 400 level classes that I had to buy texts, and even then it was only for 2 of the classes. It really helped cut costs nicely.
Re:You mean racketeering (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one of those few times when the mod system has failed. We already have a free, open source, modifiable text for every topic. It's called Wikipedia and it's the living embodiment of why we have professional, accountable, paid editors for text books. Editions can be viewed as a scam, or they can be viewed as the one tool professional publishers have to continue to generate money to pay for more quality products. If it was mandatory to go to college and buy texts I might be a bit more sympathetic, but its ones own choice to participate in the system. I really think that this is one of those cases where if you think that you can do it better, then put up or, well, you know...
Re:Editions (Score:1, Interesting)
Why can't you support editions that you have prepared for in the past? Because it takes more effort?
Scam... (Score:3, Interesting)
As others have pointed out, textbooks are quite the scam, with minor editions being updated to require purchase of new books each year.
No one wants to take the chance that they're answering the wrong question on an assignment, or missing a factoid that is asked on a test, that happened not to be in their edition.
For some subjects, evolving of the texts makes sense; for some established fundamentals, it's senseless.
What would be interesting would be for some website to track differences between editions, to let students know where they stand; it would really call out the perpetrators of this "edition scam" and reduce their power greatly.
Alternatively, I wouldn't be surprised to see a trend towards copying/pdf'ing (i.e. piracy) of texts to save money for students. Piracy often crops up in cases where there is inappropriately high pricing (most computer games, IMHO); I can't see an area more ripe for piracy than the textbook industry. (Not that I'd condone it, just that I think the prices are inflated, and the requirements for new texts are artificially and inappropriately imposed.)
One thing that always seemed odd to me was that each year, in each course, the professors seemed surprised (or feigned surprise) at how expensive the book actually was, and indicated they wouldn't have chosen it had they known how expensive it was. Are their kickbacks or something?!?!? (I taught one year, and was given a big armload of texts to examine and choose between; I wasn't told prices, and simply picked the best one based upon its merit. So if there was a kickback scam, no one approached me; thankfully, for their sake :)
Re:You mean racketeering (Score:4, Interesting)
Both of the professor written textbooks I had in college were non profit for the professor (if not others), in one the prof set up a scholarship fund with the profits, and another the prof had waved his fee altogether (even making digital copies available for free) because he was sick of the practices described above. He actually had to circumvent the college rules in order to do that too. The 50% markup over B&N or Amazon is big money for the colleges, they didn't like him selling a 20 dollar book.
Not every professor would do it for free of course, but there would be more than enough.