We can hardly be against technological and scientific progress. There is evidence that new teaching and instruction methods can be effective, as well as new teaching techniques. Keep in mind, however, you're talking to someone who represents people who earn their living by selling their intellect and producing intellectual content. I'm not against the use of technology and digital platforms. I'm not at all against that. All I am saying is that the people who essentially supply the content for those platforms should be fairly compensated. That's all. There's no other answer I can give you.
From my experience, income is down, and if publishers have less income, then authors have less income.
I can appreciate that money is being invested in new teaching methods, scientific advances, technology, and innovative solutions. Innovation is the very reason for this committee, for that matter. The fact remains that you still need raw material to start with. In order for a book to exist, someone has to write it; someone has to conceive of it. Authors have to take the time to reflect on the subject matter. We are talking about books, but the same is true for music. In the music industry, you have songwriters.
If you take money away from creators, clearly, they won't be happy. Since they are already struggling, they will be less than pleased. You will end up with educational content that is sourced left and right—all over the place, really—thanks to freely available material on such sites as Wikipedia, without any real educational oversight or quality control. Then, you will wonder why flimsy educational content is being used to shape the minds of tomorrow's youth, when that educational content used to be supplied by a serious industry that promoted knowledge and academic development. Pedagogical science is becoming a Chinese buffet of sorts. There you have it, my heartfelt appeal.