Printed books are much easier to use - you can make notes in them, you can buy older editions, you can sell them when you're done, you can read them in sunlight sitting under a tree and printed books don't spy on you and watch which pages your reading and tell your professor how much time you spent with their book.
The most evil thing is the phenomenon of online homework. Under the guise of automated teaching, students are charged to do their homework. The online homework access for a 6 week class I recently took was $168. Every move is then monitored and it's non-transferrable.
Thank you for bringing me up to speed. I’m glad to learn the information. The Internet is so useful but also so invasive. And as someone quoted in the article cautions, also expensive.
Looks like there is no free lunch. Anyway you cut this, it’s too expensive.