https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-05-21-nine-new-lawsuits-target-inclusive-access-textbook-programs-alleging-antitrust-violations
7 replies (most recent on top)
@1gjr+159boByF Yes, I agree. There really is no innovation happening anymore. Cengage Unlimited is just a pricing scheme/marketing campaign that hoped to fool students and professors into thinking they were getting a deal. Inclusive access is just another shell game. It uses deceptive marketing language to try and make it look like we are working in the student's interest, when we're just trying to chisel another dollar out of them whether they like it or not. They have a right to be outraged. Anyone who has attended and/or sent a child to college has been frustrated by all the hidden fees and costs. Adding textbooks on top of that is ridiculous. Meanwhile we do nothing to improve the actual content. I still hear the same complaints from professors about mistakes, typos, errors, missing content in print textbooks.
@1apj+159boByF is right - as we all know, you get what you pay for and $100 extra for a book will undoubtedly improve your educational outcome: I mean, unique cover art, comfy workpods and free beer for the folks at Head Office, not to mention the interest payments on all that debt, don't come cheap, for goodness sake!
Just don’t mistake that tiny, tiny group willing to pay a premium (or maybe it’s just the few lucky souls with access to Mom and Dad’s credit card) for those who care about content quality and only pay extra because their professors haven’t switched to reasonably priced alternatives. Yet.
PS I don’t mean to quibble, but I’m not sure teaming up with big bookstores to coerce students into buying a still overpriced new book, while strangling the supply of more affordable alternatives cuts it as “an innovative model”. But, hey, if you are right, those nine lawsuits should be a breeze.
If the big publishers are no longer allowed to pursue inclusive access deals it becomes incredibly difficult to see a path to viability for any of them.
An interesting article from a year ago: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrosenblatt/2019/07/20/pearsons-digital-first-strategy-will-change-how-students-get-textbooks/amp/
All three of the largest publishers are being accused, not just Cengage. The used book market has pretty much destroyed them and they are trying to find an innovative model that lowers the cost of a new product without lowering quality. Not everyone wants a templated, uninspired cheaply produced textbook, which is the some of the smaller publisher’s model.
Publishers are not moving to a subscription model. Only Cengage was foolish enough to do that.
This lawsuit has to do with abuse of the Inclusive Access option, where Cengage stands as a prime abuser to no one's surprise at all . . .
These are two very different things.
Not sure why textbook publishers would be singled out for wanting to move to a subscription business model.