Count me as another person for whom Coursera was a life-changer. I went from disaffected lawyer to deeply satisfied software dev in 4 years, in large part due to Coursera and edX, with nods to MIT's OpenCourseWare and Stanford's platform as well. Classes such as Nand to Tetris, Prof Sedgwick's algorithms, Prof Ng's ML on Coursera and MIT's Intro to CS and Programming on edX, among many others, were more than enough to get me to a place where I felt confident applying for jobs. (Especially when mixed with a few years of a Pluralsight sub as well, and some time as a volunteer with a nonprofit.)

I am deeply indebted to Coursera, but I always felt like they would struggle making money. People are only willing to pay for certs if they mean something, and unfortunately they don't. When I interviewed, every place I met with was impressed by the courses I had put myself through and the knowledge I had gained -- but not a single one even asked a question about any certificates. I always thought a sub model would probably fit them better, but it's obviously difficult-nigh-on-impossible to claw back free content. If they wanted the content to stay free, they really needed the strong backing of some sort of private entity.

100% same. Never showed certificates to a soul. But just as with you, was is not too difficult showing knowledge in software industry, at least in most startups.

And yes, some of the other platforms have been amazing too. I did the full databases course on Stanfords platform. That was priceless, and also free. Relational algebra was exactly the sort of theoretical knowledge that just learning from experience and docs doesn't teach.

Interestingly I also find most companies I have seen willing to pay for courses want some kind of certificate at the end. They don't seem to value abstract learning, even though that's the part that their team leverage to hopefully help their bottom line.

I want the platforms to make money, but I feel like universities who were not wanting to be left behind when the concept was emerging gave away far more for a short moment than they ever were going to continue to do.

Certificates and credentials and things distract from actual verifiable learning in so much of education. It is deeply ironic because that is their entire purpose.

I understand regulated industries like legal, medical and engineering need to have minimum standards that require certification, but yet the quality and reliability of practitioners varies wildly. I just feel like by turning education into a product, it is a necessary evil. Government funding is an avenue that lots of academic institutions go down. Perhaps governments should invest in more free and open education. Rather than for example funneling so much money to textbook companies.

Call me naïve and idealistic, I appreciate that there are problems and counter arguments, and as mentioned in many comments, competition does help to drive down prices. I certainly think we are still in a much better place now with it all. I'm still optimistic about all the amazing education opportunities online.

>I always thought a sub model would probably fit them better, but it's obviously difficult-nigh-on-impossible to claw back free content.

That's basically the LinkedIn model as I understand it--which has what used to be Lynda and maybe other things. I have it available as part of my company's continuing ed materials.

But what works as a professional resource paid for by companies doesn't necessarily work for individuals who will mostly only pay for a cert that employers are specifically looking at. Maybe some would pay a Netflix-range monthly fee but I suspect not enough.

Anytime I see Lynda/LinkedInLearning come up I always mention that, at least in my area, a lot of local public libraries subscribe to give their residents free access. Although I don't think that site is as strong in the programming-type courses they have a huge breadth of courses that can help the average person learn a new skill.

What they don't really go into in edited interview properly is that early on it also felt like open courses online could end paying for mediocre teaching, you could basically skip around doing best-in-class courses from top teachers and experts in their fields, and it didn't matter if you had no money in the world, just internet and a computer.

Online learners need to be use multiple sources and tools to learn. Use some of Coursera's free content with some YouTube videos with some blog posts with some Udemy sales with some library books.

It's unreasonable to expect one institution to provide all of the above for free and they just can't compete with the broad range of the internet.

The internet itself is the revolution in learning, not Coursera and not Udemy.

I don't disagree. It is true I feel sentimental, the sadness is only that what I had at that precise moment in history was so amazing and so "let's just try it and see how it goes" from educators, platforms and students that it made it so easy to access great classes including lecturers time from places like Stanford for free. What I got is not available for free. All the knowledge is available, from free and open sources though. Just not packaged as easily.

But you are still correct.

If it provided such an enormous value to you, what's wrong with paying for it?

I took more than 60 courses on Coursera and edX, like the parent commenter mostly during the completely free days. About a fifth of it was top level, about a third was "easy" courses, for example history of architecture.

I did not take a single course in my profession (I'm a CS guy doing architecture work now). Most of it was in chemistry, org. chem, bio-chem., anatomy, physiology, medicinal chemistry (drug development), neuroscience, biology/genetics, clinical study design - plus a lot of statistics practical courses (using R to do stuff, there was a very good multi-course series on Coursera).

I would not have paid anything because 1) it was just for fun, I cannot make any money with what I learned, and 2) I was earning a pittance only because I was doing did for a few years while recovering my health.

I think I can generalize the second point at least a little bit - I could see a lot of people taking such courses exactly when they are not busy in their jobs. It takes waaayyyyy too much effort to do this on the side when you have an active job and especially a family on top. Therefore I think a lot of the people who would be interested are exactly those who may not have the budget to pay.

Even more so because there are plenty of alternatives (for me my learning marathon years started with 100 hours of physiology lectures in a Youtube channel, and if I had to pay anything for access there was no way I would have ever even found any for-pay courses in the first place since the whole thing was completely accidental, one thing leading to another), and also because those "certificates" don't mean a thing.

The FOR PAY model removes all the "play" part, only people with a plan andintent come to such a place in the first place. I think free education would be far better, attracting more "accidents" like myself who never planned for any of it.

Already when I took the courses I knew they were doomed to disappear (in that form) because there would be insufficient profit. I always thought some way to fund such sites so that they can provide FREE quality education would be better instead of forcing them into the usual profit constraints. Of course 99% would be "wasted" from the point of view of the monetary-minded people (for whom my own years-long for fun learning would be completely useless too), but even they might see that even just a tiny percentage of people who do benefit and who would never found the opportunity in a for-pay edu system would be worth it, globhal-economically speaking. The price is insignificant compared to any presence-based learning (and having created multimedia learning content I certainly don't undervalue the effort for even a single course, but it's a one-time effort, and the continued presence of TAs can be achieved from within the learning community, I did that too for some of the more technical courses, free support to other learners helped me learn that much more by having to research other people's questions).

I understand where you're coming from, but with my personal experience, I just can't completely agree. Like you, I earn my money with CS, but I do music as a hobby. Never earned anything serious from it. And yet, I feel completely comfortable paying for hardware, software - and yes, education, having completed both online and offline courses.

And yet, paying for it didn't remove the "play" part you're talking about. In fact, I would feel awful if I used the very valuable services provided to me by these business and persons for free, exactly because I enjoyed them so much.

I get the feeling you ignored well over half I wrote. I hate it when people carefully select only parts of a whole to find something to nitpick. Not to mention that it isn't about anyone's personal feelings, it's how people overall act. You can have the opinion that mankind should be more like this or that, but unless you manage large scale changing of the world's population I think it's better to do something with the people actually here.

Oh and you ignored half my post, I repeat: Not only is there a big difference between me and you, you actually use the gained knowledge, I also made the point that you will only reach a small part of the population who 1) have a goal and 2) have money, which for most of the world is not true. Providing knowledge to significant parts of the world who have Internet access but not nearly enough free money for multiple courses (thousands of dollars before you learn anything, even at just $50 a course, many cost much more than that). You not only look at only yourself, even assuming a broader view you concentrate on the top 10% of people worldwide.

Also I would probably consider a pay-it-forward model of being able to sponsor others doing the courses that have subsequently brought me value, now that I have actually got some value from doing them.

For me nothing, in principal, but in reality I would not have done it. I finished Startup Engineering staying on friends couch between gigs. I did not have the cash.

And when I first tried coding from a self-paced course much earlier on, I wouldn't have started casually with a paywall.

Also, I valued the fact people in economies where they would almost certainly not afford US / European prices could freely participate as long as internet was available.

For me it is sort of like if you had to pay for git. It is one of my most used and valued tools, but part of its inherent value is its ubiquity, which I do believe has only come to pass because of the fact it is free software in all senses.

There's a difference between something we all have, and something we could have if we are able/willing to pay and I think education overall needs a bit of both.