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Comment by jstx1 | Hacker News Reader

I'll wait for the 90% discount on the stock.

I've literally never paid a full price for a Udemy course. I'd only do it if I was in rush to start some course quickly, but otherwise I just wait, usually less than 2 weeks, and I can pay 70-90% less

I just create a new account with a new email and you'll see the "flash sales" again.

Just use a temp email: https://temp-mail.org/en/

just open the window in incognito to get the 90% discounts and log in with your regular account after adding to cart.

I was going to say they it all would be at 9.95 for the next 24 hours...But interestingly I just checked, and it seems there are no promotions, and courses that were sold days ago at 9.95 are now 120 and up. Is there maybe an IPO coming up? :-)

Their promotions are usually time limited. And you'll have to make a separate account because the promotions are for new users only. So now you have your content spread over multiple accounts. But you can use Udeler so that you have local copies of everything, much better anyway.

I think it's more than just new users - I've gotten larger discounts from logging into the same account through a different browser.

yep. open the same page in a private session and watch prices plummet 90%+. Pretty annoying.

Grounds for a lawsuit?

"Price discrimination is a commonplace practice that is presumptively lawful, save under special circumstances discussed below. It occurs when a seller of products regularly offers lower prices to its preferred customers and higher prices to the others when selling them the same or similar products at around the same time."

https://www.markhamlawfirm.com/law-articles/unlawful-price-d...

Already happening. From their S-1:

In August 2021, a putative class action complaint captioned Williams v. Udemy, Inc., Case No. 3:21-CV-06489, was filed against us in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleging violations of California’s unfair competition and false advertising statutes as well as the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act in connection with the promotional “strike-through” pricing for courses offered on our platform, alleging that the reference prices used for comparison purposes are false or misleading. The complaint seeks injunctive relief, unspecified damages, restitution and disgorgement of profits. We are in the process of investigating the claims alleged in the complaint and have not yet answered. We intend to vigorously defend ourselves in this matter.

Interesting. Thanks

you dont even need a new browser or private window.

I just add the courses I want to the wishlist, logout, wait a few days, and when I sign back in, I get all my wishlisted courses for 90% off

I'm curious as to how payouts to instructors work when Udemy has 90% off courses every other week?

They would be 90% smaller (though hopefully on higher volume). From the S-1:

>We incur content costs in the form of payments to our instructors, generally determined as a percentage of total revenue generated from their content.

This is a pretty typical structure when unit costs are low. It gives the publisher the ability to price as they please to optimize revenue, and because the inventives are aligned, authors don't need to know customer willingness to pay.

A reasonable buying point would -30%. Then sell when it rebounds +20% from that point. Then do that a few more times until softbank gets involved.

Isn’t the reason they can do these discounts that that is their margin?

No, payments to authors are percentage-based, so they deflate down with the price.

It's just a form of price discrimination. If you're paying and not urgent, wait a couple weeks and the price is $10. If you've gotta have it now, or don't care about the money (e.g. work will reimburse), the price is $100.

so you plan to add to your position every other week?

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