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Imagine someone from a 3rd world country. Let's say India.

Even the books like K&R C, Tanenbaum operating systems or CLRS / Skienna Algorithms will be north of 1000 INR in India.

Count 5 - 6 such books per semester, that's at least 5k - 10k INR. But for obscure books the price often goes to 5K for a single book. Let's say 10K INR.

Which is a significant amount, and for some students can exceed a month's living expenses for a semester.

So they're hesitant to spend that much. Often they end up with shittily written local books.

Now imagine you want to consult some book for specialist topics, like Windows internals or something, you will have to sell an organ.

Source: I was the Indian student.