It boggles my mind that we're set to nearly double the record number of IPOs this year, and last year was the highest number since 1999, yet in general no one finds this at all interesting or alarming.

The market is saturated with computing-related courses aimed mostly at beginners (programming languages, software tools etc). Despite that, there is still space for well-structured, well-narrated (scripted or semi-scripted) courses with clear instruction aimed at beginners, intermediate and advanced users.

An expert in a subject is not necessary a good teacher. This is why the course quality on Udemy varies enormously. It's also why, for example, so many programming courses follow the bullet-point slides and voiceover template. There are so many more imaginative ways to teach online - but that takes more time and effort.

Udemy also encourages long courses because it gives users the impression of depth or breadth of content (and thus better value-for-money). This is why so many courses are 10, 20, and even 30+ hours - even though length is not a marker of quality.

I'm sure many readers on Hacker News have already seen the link below which is a parody of programming tutorials. (And which applies equally to free and paid tutorials.)

Every programming tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAlSjtxy5ak

I mean in the physical world, we have lots of schools because we were constrained by distance. But we don't consider all the schools interchangeable. A farm kid from Iowa would happily travel to Georgia to study at Georgia Tech because it was recognized that the experience was superior even if they had the same materials and curriculum.

So I think there is a role for different versions of the same class. Some people may even mix and match: multi variate calculus from Coursera, machine learning from Udacity, presentations from linkedin and Angular from pluralsight or whatever.