Comment Actually replacing textbooks (Score 2) 350
In reality though, I doubt it would work that way. Because ebooks are easily pirated, textbook publishers would have a hard time sustaining their racket if universities started switching over. For some reason, universities seem to actually care about what happens to publishers, so I can't imagine that many universities would be willing to require professors to choose only textbooks that have an ebook version available.
Even if it did happen, professors would just say "exams are open-book, but no computers are allowed." This would force students to spend $200+ on a physical copy even though they already paid for iPads with PDFs of the textbooks.
Basically, nothing that makes education cheeper or more convenient for students will ever work. Universities don't care about students.