I went to college in the mid aught's and it was obvious how it worked back then. I mean, has intro algebra or calc changed much in the last couple centuries? Basically all the different editions did was shuffle the chapters around a bit to make it hard to share a page number with a classmate and changed the values on the homework problems so you couldn't complete assignments using the old edition.
I don't think it fooled many people, but on the other hand, people keep wanting to eat. It does feel like there are a lot more productive uses of human work, but that's true for a lot of the economy.
There is a downside to the alternative. My Discrete Math 2 course syllabus listed a book out of print since the 80s. The only way to get a copy of the book would have been on ebay for old copies for hundreds of dollars. Thankfully we didn't use it in the actual class.
Yeah, the issue there is copyright, otherwise it would be trivial to reprint it in some form or other. Obviously the solution is open source texts for elementary to intro college level textbooks, and I can't imagine any real argument to that by anyone who isn't affiliated with a publisher.
Forgoing the copyright debate, if the book isn't like a Gutenberg Bible or something then an owner could always unbind it, send it through a scanner, and share a pdf. I've also seen instructions on building a DIY book scanner that's a lot more labor intensive but does not require damaging the book.
I had professors share PDFs of textbooks with the class, and I've been the person to torrent textbooks and provide them to classes full of people.
There are ways around the textbook industry, and the industry is so scummy they really deserve to have their works distributed in a way that doesn't give them any revenue.
I don't think it fooled many people, but on the other hand, people keep wanting to eat. It does feel like there are a lot more productive uses of human work, but that's true for a lot of the economy.