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Comment by enos_feedler | Hacker News Reader

I would like people to add paid courses. I don’t mind paying $500+ if it’s really well done

In my experience there is almost an inverse relationship between course quality and whether it's paid or not.

People who are experts in their fields typically don't need to make money from selling educational materials. They make enough money in their field of expertise, e.g. by being a researcher or professor. The reason they publish educational materials is typically to improve their public image or become a bit more famous, and they want as many people as possible to have access.

On the other hand, paid courses (think Udemy and stuff like that) are often made by people whose goal is to put in the minimum effort plus some marketing to sell a course. They are not experts in the field, and don't need to be, because marketing is more important. These courses end up being shallow low-quality fluff.

I disagree. One of the best educational resources I've seen is MasterClass and tbh, people like Wayne Gretzky, Metallica, and Will Wright don't need more money nor visibility.

I've taught courses myself. We charge a lot but in my experience, it doesn't make money. It's just a social giving back thing. It's enough to cover costs of production, but not opportunity costs. But we charge because the people who come for the free courses often leave by lunch. Even when it's an expensive course paid in full by a company, people will skimp out because of "work" and it just wastes everyone's time.

It takes about 4 hours to produce 1 hour worth of slides and content. So the income can be worse than freelance coding, even when the hourly rate is higher.

Rule of thumb IMO is that the person teaching spends at least 80% of their time on the topic that they teach.

I disagree, but perhaps there is a difference between technical and non-technical subjects. I'm aware of Masterclass and I don't know what the incentive for people to put their teachings behind a paywall is there, but if you are under the illusion that you can learn any technical subject by watching 1-3 hours (most of the courses are of that length) of videos, you are falling into instant gratification trap of modern society, just like reading popular news. These things are the pop science education equivalents of TikTok. They are interesting, but they are entertainment, not education.

The unfortunate truth is that if you want to become an expert in a technical topic, you need to put in hard work beyond 1-3 hours of watching a video, despite what all the YouTube influencers may want you to believe.

Let me chime back in here since I brought up paid courses. When I say paid courses I did NOT mean courses offered by a platform that sells paid content. Especially Masterclass. I don't want to learn from a celebrity. I want to learn from someone normal with a passion for what they have learned and want to share it with the internet in a genuine and authentic way. In that spirit, I am talking about independent teachers, generally authors, professors, researchers who have dedicated lots of years to acquire expertise. They sell courses not because they need the money, but because its passive income and simply worth it.

I agree with the sentiment that you get what you pay for, but there is so much market fluff that most of the time true gems aren't recognized, and 90% of what you see, a true professional in that area would rank, hard down.

That being said, valuable material shouldn't be available for free. You should have to exchange something for it because the author put in work and expertise to make it happen, and they won't be able to provide more or support it with a price tag of free. People have to have some incentive and be able to offset costs.

Algorithms often also control what you see so even lists like this are quickly corrupted. It truly is an 'Anathem' world now.

Any paid course that you recommend?

Any of rickhanson.net courses. Genuine guy and his heart is really into helping people learn to change their mind.

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