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First of all, I’m extremely grateful that this option—to display the printed book’s page numbers—even exists. A lot had to come together to make this possible: the development of the EPUB3 format, the active participation of publishers, and, finally, the implementation in software like Calibre for Windows.
Your example highlights publishers as the weak link in this chain of three. Ultimately, it is their responsibility to ensure accuracy. If they fail to do so, we either end up with no page numbers at all or, perhaps even worse, incorrect ones that readers mistakenly rely on.
That being said, responsibility also lies with the reader. It’s always a good practice to double-check the bibliographic information to ensure that the digital edition corresponds to the correct printed version.
Personally, I rarely encounter this issue, as my reading list consists mostly of specialized academic literature, where second editions are quite uncommon. In this regard, I find myself on relatively safe ground.
Interestingly, even within this kind of literature, publishers often prefer to release a printed edition alongside an EPUB version, deliberately avoiding the publication of a PDF edition.
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