$38 seems pretty steep. This is on the 7th edition... Could you give a review of the content? What’s ground breaking? I couldn’t imagine spending $268 on a book that will be updated next year and have to spend another $38.
This is just my 2 cents, but you've already identified the flaw in Michael's books. I have an older version but in my opinion they're screenshot heavy with a reliance on step by step instructions. Gaining an understanding of the general techniques can certainly be applicable but that's really just the "tradecraft" of OSINT, which I would argue is not where this book shines. I also take issue with Michael because he used to offer a law enforcement only version of his book that contained what he claimed to be techniques not made publicly available nor made available to the impacted service providers, which I feel violates the ethos of responsible disclosure.
It's a large aggregate of currently available OSINT resources, what content you can expect to find on them, and how to use them basically. Could you find out all this data somewhere else? Definitely. I found that having the desk reference was helpful though.