News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments by jacobwilliamroy on Friday December 04, 2020 @02:55PM (#25306927)
Those publishers are so predatory and user-hostile, I wonder if they will actually be able to restrain themselves long enough to establish a market. As it is, very few people are stupid enough to buy a "textbook" that comes with auto-self-destruct DRM that renders it unusable at the end of the semester.

Of course many college kids are just kids fresh out of highschool with no financial skills or haggling skills so I guess I take back what I said about there not being enough dumb-dumbs to fuel a market for DRM "textbooks". People do still take out loans to finance their English major, after all.

Re:Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments by yoyonamite on Saturday December 05, 2020 @03:12PM (#25317857)
The auto-self-destruct DRM isn't the textbook, it's the mandatory online quizzes provided by the publishers that require an active login. If you don't pay ~$60+ for the login, which only lasts a semester, you can't take the quizzes. If you can't take the quizzes, you fail the class.
Re:Big Tech is getting cozy with computer science departments by jacobwilliamroy on Saturday December 05, 2020 @03:15PM (#25317886)
They make limited access "textbooks" too.