[tarunmuvvala]

Similar is the case from people who can't afford. They are not asking you to give it for free. What they want is that the information accessible at affordable prices. The current situation is an ABC book either cost $10-$20-$30 or they can get it pirated. there is no middle ground.

People move to piracy due to lack of affordability and options.

[5e92cb50239222b]

Ah, the downvotes from the extremely privileged (most of whom do not even realize this).

I am from one of those countries where we pretty much cannot afford "legal" content. In my shitty town the median salary is something like $300, at least half of which goes towards paying rent if you don't have your own house, while we're being asked to pay prices that were established for developed countries with median salaries at 10× of ours or above.

Steam is one of very few exceptions and it's really popular here even among students and such (just like everywhere else).

Basically, if you want to charge me $50 for the book, you're not losing anything, simply because I cannot afford it anyway. Imagine if you had to pay $500 for books, $600 for movies, etc.

[_thisdot]

Interesting. I don’t know where you’re from. But in India, usually publishers publish an Exclusive to South Asian market version of the book which costs around $4-$20.

For example, The Pragmatic Programmer costs $10 in Indian stores, while it costs $50 in US.

[anhner]

Completely agree, and most people in developed countries don't even realise or think about this.

[__rito__]

The median price of a programming book in India is what I could buy lunch and dinner with for a month while in college. For one book.

[szundi]

In eastern europe sometimes it is the lack of legal options to actually access content. Example: star wars shows were unaccessible in any way other, academia papers, lots of books are not translated and published etc.

Not making a moral judgement, just adding color.