Wrong. You find a reason to continue with your current business model because change costs lots of money. So you blame piracy for the drop in numbers and continue to charge too much, despite it being clear that a good chunk of people don't think your product is worth the cost.
Ok, I like your argument here, but let's look at it this way. A lot of people like hot, fast sports cars, but not all of those people buy them. Why? I would venture to say that they cannot justify spending that kind of money on their transportation when they could get something that gets them from point A to point B for a fraction of the cost. If fewer people buy corvettes (due to the decline in economy, or that fact that they found out BP is using child laborers*, or whatever reason) then BP can either change their business model (i.e. make a cheaper corvette, lower their profit margin, market the corvette differently, stop using child laborers, etc) which is expensive, or they can decide that they still have enough customers and with this new (albeit lower number) they can still live with that profit. Here now though, a lot of people already didn't think the product is worth the cost, and now even more people don't think that the product is worth the cost, but taking the corvette for a joyride on the weekends (or whatever the equivalent of pirating a corvette is)** isn't justified because you don't value it for what they are asking. In most instances in the US, the decision to buy is a binary decision. Do I buy the (CD, DVD, movie ticket) or not? If the asking price is below or perhaps just above what I value the product for, I make the choice to buy the product. If the asking price is much higher than what I value the product at, I decide not the buy the product. I may think that something is a rip-off, but if I need it badly, then I value it more which sets it above the asking price. Buying a car is slightly different because if my value of the car differs from the asking price, I can haggle it down to somewhere where both the seller and I agree on a fair price. Ditto with MCAT classes. So as long as you don't value it at $1, most people who are reasonable and understand the costs of production of the materials can get a few hundred bucks shaven off the asking price to what they value it to be.
*Disclaimer 1, Chevy does not actually employ child laborers to my knowledge, this was just an example
*Disclaimer 2, there is no perfect analogue to a car for piracy of digital media. Stealing the car is not the same a pirating because stealing denies the original owner use. Likewise joyriding denies the original owner use for a period of time, but I felt it was a closer analogue.
In an ideal world, sure. But more than likely, it's an oligopoly that is exploiting the stereotypical pre-med / med student. You know, the kind with well-off parents that can afford to pay the cost to satisfy their child's dreams. I really don't think Kaplan is finding it difficult to turn a profit these days ($2.6 billion revenue in 2009). Very rarely do things work in practice as well as they do on paper. So when The Last Airbender comes out on DVD it will cost just as much as any other DVD, despite being inferior in quality and likely to sell in abysmal numbers.
Those who can afford luxuries will be better off, I agree. But I'm not bitter about it, and certainly I'm not going to take the luxury if I cannot afford it or try to justify why doing so would be right like some of the others on this board. I doubt they have issues turning a profit either, hence why they don't lower their prices. They have enough business to keep themselves afloat and kickin'. And if that DVD is truly as bad as you think it is, then it'll sell at the low end of DVDs. If you go into your local bestbuy or wherever you buy your DVDs from, you'll see that some are less than $10 a piece whereas others push 35 or 40. You have to agree that that phenomenon is driven at least partially by demand right?
I disagree. I think the same underlying principle is at work: perceived need. You don't need a textbook for every class, despite being 'required' to have it. You could just as easily borrow someone's, or make copies of what you need. (Uh oh, sounds like piracy. Argghhhh, no more photocopies!!) You don't need test prep materials either, but I've yet to find someone that doesn't highly recommend them. Not to mention that the test prep company's advertising is aimed to convince us that we need their stuff. More over, what do you use if you're a non-trad student that hasn't taken bio in years? In that case, I'd definitely say you need it.
Do you really think that putting the shopping power in the student's hands would lower the cost of textbooks? I doubt it. Because in the end, we still 'need' a book, so who is picking it out no longer matters. And seeing as the number of textbook publishing companies is rather small, I'm guessing the ability and desire for price fixing pervades that as well.
Well, you might not "need" the textbook, but the fact that it is required for the class causes you to value it more (a la the response in the first paragraph above). Borrowing someone's to look at some problems is perfectly valid as someone has legally purchased a copy of the book with the rights to use it 24/7. By using it 23 hours a day and letting you borrow it for 1 hour a day, he is (very kindly i must add!) letting you use something he purchased and has the right to use. If you were to both be bad at chemistry, and needed the book much more often, then you would value it enough to buy a second copy of the book (assuming you also value a good grade in the class!) Making a photocopy is a different issue since now you are creating 48 hours of use when you only purchased 24. If you make photocopies for yourself to make filling in worksheets easier, or so you don't have to carry around a huge book when you only need the reference pages, or things like that that is not adding more product since you yourself can only use it for 24 hours a day no matter how many copies you have. When you start giving them to others, or selling them to others, that is where the problem comes in.
And while copying a certain problem to have a friend look over is technically illegal, it's a far cry from copying entire texts and lectures and then selling them to others.
How other companies market it is not an issue in my opinion as long as their marketing techniques are legal. If they convince you you need their services, then their marketers are making their day's pay! I didn't really feel like eating pizza today, but then I got a coupon in the mail and the pizza on it looked REALLY good so I decided to call in a pizza. That's how advertising works!
And if you are a non trad student, you have the option of self studying at the library or looking through your old bio textbooks. If you want the luxury, then you'll need to pay for the luxury. IF you can't afford it, I feel for you, but either you can save up the money, or you can self-study.
And yes, I do feel that if we let students choose textbooks based on price the price would go down. By how much, I don't know, but consider this just at my school of 8000 undergraduates. When offered the choice between two textbooks for a certain Biomedical Engineering class (the relevant chapters were basically the same and we primarily needed the reference tables and learn how to use them) the class overwhelmingly chose to buy the cheaper one. If this were to happen on a national scale, we just put the other company out of business! They would either have to lower their price, make a better product, or pull that product. If they have 1000 products and this happens to 900 of them, they're toast!
Students already do have some choice. I almost NEVER buy my books at the bookstore on campus simply because they are more expensive. With the advent of half.com, amazon, barnes and noble, etc online, the book store is seeing fewer and fewer people buy from them. The only time I buy from the bookstore is if our professor wrote the textbook and is selling it through the bookstore which causes them to be cheaper (since we cut out a few middlemen) Whereas the book store used to sell at above the MSRP, now we see prices at or slightly below (about 10% below) MSRP. Coincidence? I think it might be a reaction to fewer sales. Further, sellbacks are also going up in value to match those of online sellback places.
Students do have some choice (buying online, buying paperback versions from elsewhere, buying international student editions) which does affect market price, just not as much as if you gave them a lot more control.
An aside: Has anyone else found that even if you do need a book immediately, it is still often cheaper for you to buy it online and have it overnight-ed than to buy the book from your campus bookstore? The difference is between getting the book at 5pm tonight versus 10AM the next day, and I save myself about 40 bucks still!
Also, may I add: Thank GOD for some intelligent discussion around here. I'm so tired of people ducking their heads into a thread, saying a line to insult someone they disagree with, but not actually saying WHY they disagree (probably because they don't actually know why they disagree and don't care to think about it!)
the pirate movie was rated arrrrrrrrrrrrrr 
Well, we know what he meant to say. Plus, in the article, the quote preceding it was, "Piracy is theft".
