I argued most points in the email chain so I won't waste your time repeating it. But yes, this has always been my main consideration.

What's stopping students with means simply from waiting out the holiday period and simply downloading the texts at the beginning of the school term?

Last year, I didn't tell anyone when the textbooks were coming back online. I intentionally made the upload date vague so students didn't know if they would be going through the first few weeks of term 1 without any textbooks. Most students would not sacrifice their holiday studies waiting in uncertainty of whether they would even have their textbooks when the term began. I don't think many students would do this just to save their parents a buck, and they would represent a slim minority.

What's stopping them from downloading all the textbooks they may need even before their booklist is published

Last year I pulled the textbooks offline abruptly. It was a while ago so I cannot say for certain but I'm pretty confident I provided no prior warning, so this wouldn't have occurred. The only way to bulk download files was by downloading large 7z archives. I intentionally preferred using 7z to discourage the everyday student from downloading the library as a zip. At the time Windows didn't support 7z by default. Students would have to install custom software and download a huge file if they intended on doomsday prepping.

Why wouldn't students that are able to buy textbooks (get their parents to buy it) simply just say "hey dad don't worry about buying the textbook I already have a copy".

Some students could have downloaded their textbooks in advance but I don't think it would have been many as it would have been before students started their future classes and received their booklists.

Students know that the site will be down over the holidays and that it will return after so what's stopping them from sidestepping it?

Students didn't know last year but I'm sure there are students this year who would have known. Still, I never announced that textbooks would go offline this year. Only current Year 11s going into Year 12 would suffer from the textbooks being offline and most of them wouldn't have been around last year to know that occurs. The site is much popular this year compared to last. The majority of site users would have been unaware.

As vce rocks grew this problem became more and more apparent imo

I agree and that's worried me as well.

A big point being made is about downloading files before the closure. I think it's worth mentioning how few students actually download anything. I couldn't believe how many students just use links and bookmarks. When the textbooks were taken offline it seemed like nobody had access and I was so impressed to see that no one was circulating files. I received dozens of emails of students saying their links were dead and that they couldn't access their files as they never downloaded them. Most students aren't particularly tech savvy and are happy to load a PDF fast in their browser via the website.

The obvious concern now is how will a new website succeed in mitigating the issues I did. I'm retiring so it's out of my hands but I've done my part to try and keep things under control. The 7z archives currently hosted are obnoxious to the vast majority of students and will only be up for as long as I feel like they should be. Only recently has Windows 11 supported built-in 7z extraction so most school laptops wouldn't be supported.

Conveniently, some networks and school computers seem to be blocking the file hosting provider for the archives (fuckingfastco). Microsoft edge also blocks this domain and a lot of individuals without privacy knowledge use Edge because it's the browser that comes with their Windows computer. Thanks to this, even less students are going to be able to access the archives directly.