Many of his students are even involved in education in some way (incl. me, I make software for university bookstores).
Well, as this reminds me of a discussion on here that illustrated why 'hopeless idealism' in the face of actual problems of market economics tends never to amount to much, the "answer" readily jumps to mind:
"Create a model for a market which rewards actors who behave similar to [Allen Downeys] and punishes those who do not, and migrate communities to instead use such a system."
Of course, it's a nontrivial (monumental, tbh) solution, but frankly, so is the problem it addresses - we'd have them solved if they weren't. Nonetheless, that is what is needed to 'solve' the problem (rather than merely sidestep it - though that could also be done as a non-lasting 'patch' solution).
Fortunately in this time of flux, few are confident in what "will" actually happen, and thus many are willing to try out new systems. Perhaps someone like you (or even you) will construct such a model in Ethereum or some other market platform which ends up being the dominant one in 20 years.
I think you missed this part
> All of our books are available under free licenses that allow readers to copy and distribute the text; they are also free to modify it, which allows them to adapt the book to different needs, and to help develop new material.
Along with the source to all the books, https://github.com/AllenDowney
We need to find a way to make 100 more Allen Downeys