You can stream just about any kind of content on demand now. Rather than purchasing a single DVD or CD, companies like Netflix and Spotify have popularized a business model where customers pay a monthly fee and get on-demand access to a huge library of content.
Now, everyone knows that the college textbook market is horrifically broken. But just how “there’s no way that can possibly be true” broken is it? Here’s a quick comparison between major media types that shows how INSANELY EXPENSIVE textbooks are.
Movies and TV Shows
Amazon Prime - $6.59/month ($79/year) for access to 10,000 movies and TV shows Netflix - $7.99/month for access to 20,000 movies and TV shows Hulu Plus - $7.99/month for access to 45,000 movies and TV shows
Music
Spotify - $9.99/month for access to 15 million songs Rhapsody - $14.99/month for access to 14 million songs
Textbooks
CourseSmart (“world’s largest provider of digital course materials,” sells digital access to other publishers’ textbooks) - $20.25/month ($121.49/180 days) for access to one biology textbook - $18.25/month ($109.49/180 days) for access to one world history textbook - $18.49/month ($110.99/180 days) for access to one algebra book
Online, on demand access to one textbook (~$19/month) costs more than online, on demand access to every major movie, TV show, and song produced in the US in recent memory ($7.99 + $9.99 = $17.98/month). Really. One textbook costs more than the entire output of the film, television, and music industries combined.
Go on… read that previous paragraph again. The math is correct, but it’s not right. Not in any moral sense of the word “right,” anyway.
Sources Amazon Prime and Netflix data, Hulu Plus data, Spotify data, Rhapsody data, Biology book data, Algebra book data, World History data
P.S. I’d love a great visualization of these data. If you feel inspired to create one, post a link to it in the comments below.