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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

> They are structural problems related to the three main types of buyers, which are: 1. Schools, (K-12, Univ), 2. Companies (employee training, compliance, etc), 3. Individuals (self-learners). There are other types of buyers but they don't represent nearly as much aggregated potential revenue as these three.

What about parents? That would seem like a natural market for a product that could replace expensive private school tuition (or paying high property taxes in order to be in a good public school district). I recently saw a literacy product aimed at parents, and which costs $50/month. They justify their pricing based on its substitutes being a tutor or private school tuition. While this is a bit of a stretch for a literacy tool, it would be a very fair comparison for a very good AI tutor that teaches the child and has a dashboard/summary for parents.

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> What about parents? That would seem like a natural market for a product that could replace expensive private school tuition (or paying high property taxes in order to be in a good public school district)

Quality of education is one factor among many when making the choice to send your child to a private school or move to a prosperous community with well funded public schools.

Another major one is social clustering, premised on the expectations that children will pick up beneficial cultural traits from similarly higher privilege peers that will help them advance.

Edu software can't provide the social benefits of exclusive schools (whether they are private or public). Parents know that which is why if they can afford to, they avoid underperforming schools.

    > or move to a prosperous community with well funded public schools

To be clear, in most highly advanced democracies, public schools are mostly nationally funded, not locally funded. The US is a rare outlier, where public schools are mostly locally funded. Most people from both sides are surprised to learn about the other: people from US to learn about "the majority" and non-US people to learn about US system. In most places that use national funding for public schools, if you wish to select a school system with better funding, you pay for private school.

> Edu software can't provide the social benefits of exclusive schools (whether they are private or public). Parents know that which is why if they can afford to, they avoid underperforming schools.

Well, the underperforming schools also have worse teachers, and can be dangerous. It's not like the reason people avoid bad schools is because of the software. A parent recently told me he's sending his son to a private middle school because he's worried about gangs and bullying at the public school. An AI chatbot wouldn't bring those risks (though it also wouldn't deliver benefits of social interaction with well-behaved, bright children, either).

> Well, the underperforming schools also have worse teachers, and can be dangerous.

I think that falls under my use of the phrase "social benefit".

>I recently saw a literacy product aimed at parents, and which costs $50/month. They justify their pricing based on its substitutes being a tutor or private school tuition.

There's a software startup aimed at teaching 3-5 year olds reading called Mentava that charges parents $500/month (not a typo). And there are plenty of online tutoring services for kids at the $200/month level.

I think educational software aimed at parents has traditionally priced themselves too low, hampering the development of what's possible.

> What about parents?

I posted on an extensive reply on exactly this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40988380

Could be huge for the home schooling market for the same reasons.

Bingo. I expect that the "home schooling" market will balloon in coming decades, and that it will no longer be called "home schooling". It will be "independent schooling" or some such thing, and will be extremely popular. Combine this with remote work, and all of a sudden parents can live in all sorts of places that would have previously been impractical or impossible.

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