1. People think the point of education is credentials and free online courses don't typically come with credentials.
2. People routinely use price as a proxy for value. This makes it hard to feel confident that a free course is actually worthwhile.
The nice thing about YC's free education is that neither of these applies.
If you want to start a business, you mostly don't need credentials. (There are exceptions.) You mostly just need to know how to make it happen.
They have a really good reputation. They know what they are talking about.
Bonus points: They do this stuff for free because HN and Startup School are both part of their funnel. If you actually do start a business and hope to grow it big, they would like a piece of the action.
So you know they are giving you good information because they want you to succeed so they can get a cut of some of the businesses that succeed that started out just consuming their free stuff. That's exactly how they make their money and there is a lot of money at stake, so it's worth it to them to give some stuff away for free.
I will probably watch the Adora Cheung video later today. I think that's one I haven't seen and I've really liked everything I've seen by her so far.
YC also has a free library of stuff. You don't need to be in Startup School to start accessing their educational things.
So if you want to learn and don't yet feel ready to commit to starting a business, you can start learning on your terms, at your pace.
Don't discount the value of that for laying the groundwork for a future business. If you can only give it an hour or two a week now, do what you can now. It adds up over time.