I agree that renting is incredibly popular, but I worry about Chegg's success. I see more and more students (I'm a Ph.D. student in Computer Science) just "obtain" a PDF of the book and skip buying new/used or trying a rental service. The ones who still want dead tree buy copies from India for significantly less than the rental price, with the only difference some text on the cover.
What's wrong with those things? Obviously books costing $70 or $100 are not priced to target people subsisting on ramen noodles. And it's only the current debt-madness which has lead people to think those prices are anywhere near sane.
Like most things, no one is getting terribly rich off textbooks. What bothered me most in college was when they would release a new edition and refuse to buy back the old one.Even when the difference between the versions wasn't noticeable.
That dollar in the PDF is sliced so many different ways and spread apart that you don't really notice that the publisher takes 64.6% of it. Of an estimated 6 billion dollar market. I'd say _someone_is getting rich off textbooks, but it ain't the author.
At least one barrier to the general brand of renting is that it has long been associated with finance related ripoffs. I think brands like Netflix, etc. have worked to make their offerings appear as services rather then renting.
Zipcar just filed for an IPO to payoff their debt. They've got a lot of it.
I also don't see how Chegg deals with some of the things universities/text book publishers have done to handicap the used textbook market - i.e. having a new edition every year, with new required problems in the classes.
Negotiating power, and the ability to shift books around the country. They can demand discounts because they are making bulk orders larger than a single bookstore and textbooks refresh at 3-year intervals for the most part.
Startup opportunity: build a site which correlates the problems in the new edition with the old edition. (I.e., problem 5 in edition 3 = problem 7 in edition 4, turn "4/3" to "9/7".)
Renting in general (cars, housing) is one of those things that people want other people to do, but not for themselves, at least not on things they consider important. For example, if you rent textbooks, you give them up at the end of the semester... but a lot of people want to have them around for years later.
An example is that, following the housing crisis, people quipped about how all "those people" who were taking out bad mortgages should have been renting instead of buying their homes, and there are a lot of arguments for why renting is superior to ownership for real estate (repairs done by professionals, more mobility, etc). But few people actually want to live by this. They'll gladly rent in their 20s when they're starting out, but they want to own the house they raise their children in.
They'll gladly rent in their 20s when they're starting out, but they want to own the house they raise their children in.
I'm not sure that's really true. The rental and purchase markets tend to offer different products in most places. So while you can find studio rentals easily, you can't find rentals for a family of 5 nearly as easily.
Also, in the US, we tend to only see short term lease options for residential renting (say 12 months). But as you get older and get children, the cost of moving begins to rise. You've got a lot more stuff and your friends are older and busier and less inclined to blow a day helping schlep your stuff. So I think part of what older married people with children are buying when they buy a house is freedom from having to worry that they'll suddenly have to scramble to find a new place and then actually move.
Any europeans here on HN? I had a german professor last semester tell me many schools/teachers don't require students to buy specific textbooks and do homework problem sets in Europe. They just expect their students to understand the material, turn in good labs or essays, and pass the tests. He was obviously criticizing that american college students are spoon-fed their education.
Each country is different, the German model sounds good.
Here in the UK, you don't buy textbooks until college/university... at school they are provided by the school; apart from that detail sounds more similar to the american system though.
Indeed. I live in the UK and had no need to buy a single text book throughout my degree (Computer Science). There were usually a few equivalent suggested books for each module. We were free to purchase or borrow any of them or use other sources such as online material.
I bought half a dozen books because they were interesting beyond the course itself, mostly just used the library and online material though.
13 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 32.8 ms ] threadLike most things, no one is getting terribly rich off textbooks. What bothered me most in college was when they would release a new edition and refuse to buy back the old one.Even when the difference between the versions wasn't noticeable.
That dollar in the PDF is sliced so many different ways and spread apart that you don't really notice that the publisher takes 64.6% of it. Of an estimated 6 billion dollar market. I'd say _someone_is getting rich off textbooks, but it ain't the author.
I also don't see how Chegg deals with some of the things universities/text book publishers have done to handicap the used textbook market - i.e. having a new edition every year, with new required problems in the classes.
An example is that, following the housing crisis, people quipped about how all "those people" who were taking out bad mortgages should have been renting instead of buying their homes, and there are a lot of arguments for why renting is superior to ownership for real estate (repairs done by professionals, more mobility, etc). But few people actually want to live by this. They'll gladly rent in their 20s when they're starting out, but they want to own the house they raise their children in.
I'm not sure that's really true. The rental and purchase markets tend to offer different products in most places. So while you can find studio rentals easily, you can't find rentals for a family of 5 nearly as easily.
Also, in the US, we tend to only see short term lease options for residential renting (say 12 months). But as you get older and get children, the cost of moving begins to rise. You've got a lot more stuff and your friends are older and busier and less inclined to blow a day helping schlep your stuff. So I think part of what older married people with children are buying when they buy a house is freedom from having to worry that they'll suddenly have to scramble to find a new place and then actually move.
Here in the UK, you don't buy textbooks until college/university... at school they are provided by the school; apart from that detail sounds more similar to the american system though.
I bought half a dozen books because they were interesting beyond the course itself, mostly just used the library and online material though.