publishers need to make money too. i also dislike this anti 'rent-seeking' culture. if there is no reason for it to cost that much, start your own publishing company and give out the materials for free (or some lower price).
> start your own publishing company and give out the materials for free
There are many people that are moving exactly to this. As ever, the problem is that the market is not perfectly fluid and things like academic cultural biases, impressions of prestige, etc often do not follow the most efficient contours. Posts like the GP's are called for precisely because they call attention to this and try to shift perception.
