Me and my colleagues will be affected by the end of Z library and co related projects. Here in Brazil and for sure in most second and third world countries, people don't have money to spend in books. You can argue that people can go to the library, but in most cases it's even expensive to take a bus or taxi even a Uber. I'm a law student at an university in brazil. Law books are really expensive. Even though my unive…
150$ for a book is a lot of money even in the U.S. How do publishers expect other countries to pay the equivalent of 150$ (in local currency)? In many places $150 might be half the monthly salary or worse.
I understand publishers and authors need to get paid, especially the authors. It takes decades to gain expertise in difficult subjects and on top of it, one needs to be able to write well to create a good book. So yes, authors need to be compensated. But at the same time, their customer base in most cases are college kids. How do they expect them to pay? And how much of all that money goes to the authors anyway, who are the real experts vs the middlemen, the publishers?
The whole situation is just depressing.