This is a tarpit monetisation method unfortunately. (I learnt the hard way) It's common for student ideas too (as in ideas with students/recent graduates as endusers/customers).

The general argument is - we can specifically identify talent and motivated learners/skill-possessing people, who will look for jobs. That's exactly what companies need and companies pay $5k-$10k a head during good markets for this rare STEM skill, like programming!

Problem - The people on these platforms are 70% likely to give up within 6 months or go into another field

Problem - Experience means 10x more than education to employers, especially fundamental experience

Problem - Your information on potential hires as the provider becomes outdated fast and supply-demand changes in hiring market can reduce your commissions by 50-75% in one year (as happened from 2022-2023)

I would go as far as saying these users - because they are typically earlier career - are actually worse for connecting with jobs boards/hiring than literally any random iPhone user for advertising purposes. And companies don't pay much to advertise to random iPhone users. I wish it wasn't so, but it is so according to how companies act.

If OP wants to monetise this way they should consider an affiliate programme to a CV upload or Jobs board site, it will test any appetite for hiring these people at the moment much quicker.

even easier, just a job board (like stackoverflow), where companies pay to advertise a job.

the job board could even pitch jobs in the language an exercism user is currently learning

It's also worth pointing out the Exercism isn't for coding newbies - it's for developers learning new languages. This often gets missed.

I think this is a major selling point. If developers could upload their CVs, exercise could package together the users yoe + industry experience with the users learning veracity + main language. I think that would be a solid product that hiring people would pay money for.

Shouldn't that make it even easier to monetize? I appreciate the resolve to keep things free for those who can't afford to pay, but a lot of your users are presumably actively employed making 6 figures.

You could follow the Sublime Text model and basically have an honor system—if you're actively employed making more than $X, please pay us. If you're not, you're welcome to use it for free!

The Tech Resume Inside Out [0] uses this model (though not on the honor system) for similar reasons.

[0] https://thetechresume.com/

Yes. Good idea.

Another thing. There are several podcasts who have a free feed and paid one. Sam Harris’ Making Sense comes to mind with their free feed and a paid one for full access to all content. But they understand not everyone can pay. If one is unable to pay, they can simply email to ask for a free annual membership.

Pay what you want albums on Bandcamp are another example of a sliding scale. Suggested price $10, but artists can define their minimum.

Maybe, but as a company a place that appears to be designed to teach beginners how to code isn't where I'd want to look for candidates.

I would look to reduce server costs instead. $7k/month for 2 million users seems like a lot. Do they execute your code on their servers? I couldn't really tell from their website.