Free textbooks?

Matthew Yglesias considers the economics behind the rise of electronic textbooks:

Freeing school districts from the costs of book acquisition by paying for the creation of high-quality free alternatives would be an excellent investment. Of course any philanthropist would hesitate to produce an Apple-exclusive product, but surely the Gates Foundation could be tempted to team up with its benefactor’s old rival Apple to break the textbook cabal. The good news is that the much-criticized user agreement associated with iBooks Author explicitly exempts books distributed for free from any restriction. In the short-term, of course, savings from free textbooks would be clawed back by the price of tablets. But schools are already spending bundles on computers, often with little to show for it. More to the point, the price of electronic gadgets falls steadily each year while textbooks keep getting more expensive. Apple’s technology plus a relatively modest investment from credible outsiders could not so much transform the $8 billion K-12 textbook market as destroy it altogether.

The evolution of technology's relationship with education has been a point of interest on this blog for a while. The verdict remains the same: it won't improve education. That said, up-to-date and inexpensive textbooks just might.