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Comment by q7xvh97o2pDhNrh | Hacker News Reader

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Ah, the classic "California Corporate" style of speaking:

    Q: Yes or no question about a specific case?

    A: Four sentences of condescending and convoluted explanation about how the
    rules work for the entire system, while simultaneously refusing to give a
    clear "yes" or "no" to the specific case being asked about.

It seems passive-aggressive to demand that every single reader piece together the logic of their "labs" and "campaigns" and "badges" to figure out if a given course is free or not. I'm all for shipping early and often, but it does feel like adding 2 if statements would have made the whole pricing answer about 100x more user-friendly.

</vent>

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It's not that complicated. "Courses" are canned, one-way training material (comparison: books, lectures) that usually cost nothing. "Labs" are interactive exercises that require spinning up resources for each user (comparison: science labs with chemicals and beakers) so they usually cost something.

Yes, as a Qwiklabs user, you know this. But it is quite hard to decipher if you haven’t used the platform before. I agree with the GP that the current wording poses an unnecessary cognitive burden and should be more clear. Nothing wrong with e.g. “Mainly yes, but you’ll have to spend a few bucks on the hands-on labs”

Even after reading these comments I still don't know if the course is free or not. Either they charge for the labs, or the labs are free but require access to GCP resources. I still don't know which.

Fair point. The non-interactive parts are free. There are very few labs which require the purchase of credits. The labs are plug & play with all required resources provided (and deleted afterwards), so you don’t need an own GCP account.

Because people too often jump to conclusions on hearing yes/no, imo. Not trying to defend the corporate speak though, obviously they should have put the yes/no up front and then try to explain later.

I think this is standard corporate speak. Even in office my colleagues give long prose for just yes or no.

I will ask chatGPT to respond in "California Corporate" style, to know it more.

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