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Comment by Graffur | Hacker News Reader

My first reaction to this blog post was kind of negative because Master Class is not free. I watched the teaser video and it's actually pretty inspiring. As someone who has done undergraduate Computer Science level Math, but completely forgotten most things about Math except for simple Algebra, I am going to try this.

The cost is €16/month which is cheaper than Netflix. I just cancelled my Spotify recently so this is affordable for me right now.

EDIT: The problem I see with Master Class as a subcription service is... if you watch Master classes on everything you are getting a broad education rather than a deep dive. I guess it's more for entertainment though.

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In case anyone missed the response to a similar comment on the blog:

> Terence Tao on 27 January, 2022 at 10:31 am The production values of the lecture series given by Masterclass would not be possible for me to replicate by myself. (For instance, the film shoot alone involved well over a dozen people, including makeup, prop design, camera and lighting crew, director, editing, etc., in a custom studio with professional-quality recording equipment. The professional scriptwriting services were also very valuable, improving the selection and arrangement of material in ways I would not have thought of.)

Plenty of Youtube teachers put out good quality stuff without access to any of that. People would listen to Terrence Tao using a cheap ass webcam and drawing on screen using a Wacom tablet. It's a justification for something that doesn't add value for learning mathematical thinking. To me it sounds more like he gets paid a passive income and a lump sum to make infotainment.

> Plenty of Youtube teachers put out good quality stuff without access to any of that. People would listen to Terrence Tao using a cheap ass webcam and drawing on screen using a Wacom tablet. It's a justification for something that doesn't add value for learning mathematical thinking. To me it sounds more like he gets paid a passive income and a lump sum to make infotainment.

That's possible. It's also possible that Terrance Tao is correct in his judgement that using Masterclass was worth it for him. Personally I'd give him the benefit of the doubt that he's not lying.

I didn't say he was lying, I just think the value add of a crew of this size is overrated.

Well he knows what he's capable of and knows what the crew is capable of. I think it makes more sense to assume he know what he's talking about rather than not. I mean he might literally never have done this without Masterclass at all.

I never said anything about not knowing what he's talking about either. It's a bit hard to have a discussion like this.

I think the gratuitous cynicism toward the mathematician is uncalled for. Terence Tao has devoted a lot of time writing educational articles on his blog. [1] If he mainly cares for passive income, he could divert a bit of time to hire a production company and film a few courses. He would own 100% of the contents and make millions simply out of his global name recognition.

Going with Masterclass is probably the path of least resistance for him to create high-quality video content while continuing to spend most time on research and other educational activities.

Another possible factor: Many good mathematicians are quite perfectionistic and would not want to create homemade-quality videos if they can avoid it.

[1] https://terrytao.wordpress.com/

> He would own 100% of the contents and make millions simply out of his global name recognition.

I think you overestimate how commercially viable actual teaching is as opposed to infotainment. Either way, infotainment allows him to earn money and talk about a subject he loves. Good for him and people love infotainment, it tickles their brains just enough but not too much to require actual thinking.

There are large groups of people who do care about their own’s and their kids’ mathematical education — some in North America and other continents and a huge number in Asia.

An example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/16/south-korea-te...

“Teaching pays: Cha said he earned $8m last year. “I’m madly in love with maths,” he said, looking the height of trendiness in his crimson shirt and trousers and tweed jacket, in his office in Gangnam – a wealthy part of Seoul famous for its conspicuous consumption and featured in the song Gangnam Style.”

There is a reason the PISA results of some countries stay consistently near the top: https://factsmaps.com/pisa-2018-worldwide-ranking-average-sc...

I don't think you understand the pressure he is under. Being a mathematician is not a joke, they project a fear-aura and can never tell a lie. It's the closest you can come to finding aliens on the planet.

Sure, if you're a full time youtuber already with years of experience knowing how to script, film, light, edit, do post production, etc. etc. etc.

A lot of these youtubers who put out fantastic videos do essentially all the same things as the Masterclass production crew, but just on a smaller scale. Countless hours are poured into producing these youtube videos that are maybe just as short as 10 minutes.

And even if Terrance Tao wants to make some infotainment, what's wrong with that?

> To me it sounds more like he gets paid a passive income and a lump sum to make infotainment.

Whether or not something's infotainment and whether or not it could be done more cheaply are orthogonal. There's no reason for him to make this on Youtube, any more than there's a reason for plumbers to do plumbing for nothing in their spare time.

I didn't claim they were related. The justification for the cost of MasterClass was that they have a huge crew that produces these professional looking video's. Which is probably true, but I think the value added is not big enough to justify the cost. There's no reason to make it on Youtube because he doesn't make money that way, I agree. We don't live forever after all. I mainly see it as a way for him to make some extra money and there is nothing wrong with that.

Yes, sounds like he is trying to reach a different audience, versus trying to reach the HN audience in a different way.

Seems like motivation porn more than education. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just knowing which one is which is useful.

I think of it like "listen to an expert in X talk about why they love X" instead of "learn the basics of X". It's sort of more like an interview than a lecture.

Well said... Unfortunately some will then transfer this to their own resume in some sort of spin that they are a subject matter expert.

If I saw a masterclass on a resume I'd cringe for the candidate but wouldn't hold it against them :)

True. They had this cooking classes from some Michelin 3-star restaurant chef. Apart from some slick flourishes these are not usually about learning some practical skills.

I'm a mathematician who joined Masterclass to improve my cooking. I look forward to checking out the class by Terence Tao, as a diversion.

I held off joining for the longest time because I didn't want twenty hours of each person telling me "You can do this!" The cooks such as Thomas Keller simply aren't capable of staying in affirmation mode that long (think of their kitchens!) and they do get down to business. I learned a lot, even as an experienced cook.

(Math meets Keller: I still don't believe they use a 10% brine in the restaurant. I think he's confused as to what they do.)

I wish people would avoid suffixing porn to give a negative connotation to anything they disagree with. As a non-native English speaker, I truly hate the way some Americans butcher the language.

You and George Orwell:

Politics and the English language http://www.public-library.uk/ebooks/72/30.pdf

We've had Masterclass for a bit over a year now. It's not deep, for sure, not going to replace any kind of study or exercise.

However, the production value is not only visually high, it is generally well done so I find myself watching something I might otherwise not be interested in. It's not like TED talks, which I often find too showy, too heavy on the presentation.

I think Masterclass is a good platform for this kind of thing: get experts to introduce people to watch something they otherwise wouldn't.

Same for me, I also appreciated that he responded to the question on his blog of why it is paid - production value / editing / professional equipment etc... it makes sense.

I had a similar negative knee jerk reaction upon learning that Yo-Yo Ma gives one of the courses from MasterClass. The whole MasterClass business seems like entertainment as you've noted. Music could be entertainment but there's some deep subjects just like mathematics. One cannot just sit back and gain deep understanding.

It would take hundreds or thousands of lectures to go deep on a subject as vast as mathematics.

Even cooking would require hundreds -- there's a whole lot of dishes, cuisines, styles and techniques.

May of any subject is likely a years-long endeavor.

On that note, I wonder if anyone has suggestions for paid video content that is good? That is, "non fiction" or educational stuff like this series is supposed to be. I feel like I spend too much time watching YouTube (mostly free) and Netflix (very cheap, quality varies).

This is a vague question but I'm interested in all kinds of suggestions... including meta suggestions to recommendation sites. I sometimes look at various subreddits like /r/netflix but I don't find much there.

https://www.wondrium.com/home

Coursera and EdX are generally quite good (a general heuristic is to avoid the certificate/microdegree stuff.)

Otherwise, I think the real question is "why just paid?!"

There's an absolute load of amazing free online video content. What topic(s) are you interested in?

And there look for non-US universities or the older courses by US universities (when MOOCs were still a thing idealists did). For US universities providing such online courses are now either part of marketing or an attempt to sell overpriced masters. For the European state-run universities they instead mostly deliver good content but without the rip off. They lack slick design and editing but they usually make up for it with substance. For example look at TU Delft for the absolutely best aeronautics and engineering courses.

Agreeed. Crufy MIT OpenCourseware stuff is way better than almost all paid options.

MASSOLIT (www.massolit.io) might be up your street. Short video lectures from university academics on a whole range of topics.

Disclaimer: I run it.

CuriosityStream [0] has non-fiction documentaries on a broad range of subjects that can be educational, and is relatively cheaper than similar services. I have been a subscriber for a few years, and it's easy to default to it over YouTube, when you feel you're watching too much of YouTube and not really getting much in return.

I've also heard good things about The Great Courses Plus [1], but have not tried them out yet.

[0]: https://curiositystream.com/categories

[1]: https://www.wondrium.com/the-great-courses-plus

Which actually adds value to Masterclass because really what kind of an education could one get from Netflix?

I’ve thought for years that netflix could/should really do something interesting with education. I’d love some high quality lectures and courses from them. Like actually legit ones.

There's some good comments on the blog post about why he thinks doing it through MasterClass brought a lot of value that wouldn't be there otherwise.

You are not going to go from high school math to graduate level competency with this course, obviously.

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