I think it boils down to critical mass. There are more and more people with an increase of quality. In addition, the overall community aspect developed by remote students has really taken off. I don't think you can look at it so much as "how is this different from this" as you can just see the relative size of each. Lastly, while those technologies and offerings may have existed in the past, computers and web content have never been as accessible as they are now. And that is only going to increase.