[bronson]

When I tried using a previous edition, the page numbers and most of the exercises didn't line up. "Thursday's test will be on pp 144-172 inclusive, and get to know exercise 5.17." It put me at a surprisingly big disadvantage.

Pretty sure the publishers anticipated this.

[rococode]

That's often the only thing that actually substantially changes between editions. Shuffle the exercise numbers and change the font and spacing and voila, brand new edition completely incompatible with older versions!

[bch]

If that’s true, can’t there be some consumer class-action applied?

[dragonwriter]

Class actions, like any lawsuit, require a law to be broken.

[truth_]

If the teachers are helpful, this would not be an issue. In most places I went to, teachers understood, and some peer always helped people with older textbooks. For problem set additions or extra chapters or pages, we used to photocopy those pages before high-res cameras became a norm in mobile phones.

[alisonkisk]

What school was this? I would never send myself or a child to a school that exploited us like that.