The move to online or digital textbooks was supposed to drastically cut prices. No paper, no printing expense, no shipping expense, no storage expense, fewer bookstore employees to pay, etc.
What actually happened is textbook publishing houses like Pearson just leveraged the digital tecnology to make duplication or resale difficult or impossible, and kept all the cost savings to themselves.
This seems similar to a lot of "automation" concern - it helps consumers but you're still cutting a lot of jobs. I think we need a better social safety net before we can truly see the benefits of improving production chains. Otherwise you're mainly going to see people justifying existing jobs (as has historically been the case)
What actually happened is textbook publishing houses like Pearson just leveraged the digital tecnology to make duplication or resale difficult or impossible, and kept all the cost savings to themselves.