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I've used quite a few other (pay) MOOC services; subscription based, pay by class, free, etc... Pluralsight, Udemy, Lynda, Coursera, Code School, Stack Skills

I've used quite a few other (pay) MOOC services; subscription based, pay by class, free, etc... Pluralsight, Udemy, Lynda, Coursera, Code School, Stack Skills I've also used some small independent ones as well (Bitfountain is just one example). The thing I would be really curious to see (but unfortunately don't think we will see any time soon) is how the profit numbers stack up on these different pay models. For the subscription based services I will pay a monthly fee for no more than one service at a time and I will make heavy use of it during that time period. This is what I did with Pluralsight, Code School, and Lynda. Got a subscription and used it for awhile then canceled when I was done with the material I was interested in or I didn't have enough time to spend for it to be worth the money. I also cap the value at about $50/month max. Not that Udacity has bad content, but there is great content on the competitors too. I can sign up for Pluralsight + Lynda + Code School every month and still have money left over to buy some courses outright on Udemy or Stack Skills. In total I've spent a lot more money on buying courses outright from sources like Udemy. Originally I was looking there for some specific technical classes, but they have so much variety I have spent more money on things like art, photography, and design classes. Wow... I went off on a bit of a tangent there. Anyway; really would be interested in seeing how much money is being made by these different services as well as seeing percentages/dollars of how much of that passes through to individual content creators etc...

el_benhameen 11y ago
As someone who wants to use perhaps one or two--but certainly not all-- of these services, I'm curious which of these services you've found most valuable. I'm asking generally, though I'm mostly interested in compsci/dev topics, if that's helpful.
- bigtunacan 11y ago
  It depends a bit what specific stacks you are interested in. Pluralsight and Lynda's "all you can eat" monthly subscriptions are probably the best since they just have more classes all around. Lynda by and far has the most classes available. They have more tech classes than Pluralsight, but they also have classes in many unrelated categories as well. The flip side; I think Pluralsight holds content authors to a higher standard. Once Pluralsight was heavily focuses on .NET, but they've branched out a lot more. Coursera has some good stuff and it's free if you don't care about the cert. Their Functional Programming in Scala class is excellent.
- moistgorilla 11y ago
  not the person you are responding to but i've found udacity and linda to be the most valuable. Short and to the point videos are more useful to me than long winded lectures.
- rahimnathwani 11y ago
  "mostly interested in compsci/dev topics" Assuming you are looking for primarily video content: - Go deep into some recent-ish tech stack, e.g. React/Flux: Udemy - Learn foundational stuff, like math: Coursera - iOS: Bitfountain if you can afford it. Otherwise Udacity or Udemy. - Android: Udacity - Frequently need access to 'how do I do this thing that I know should take only 10 mins in app Y?' help: Lynda - ELI5: Code School or Treehouse - Anything teachable that's non-tech: Udemy
  - bigtunacan 11y ago
    Bitfountain also has a great Android class set, which for the life of me I don't understand why it's not listed on their main page, but you can directly access it here. https://fedora.bitfountain.io/courses/android https://fedora.bitfountain.io/courses/android It's normally $149 for lifetime access, but they runs sales on it as low as $49.
    - nicholjs 11y ago
      we put a lot of effort into the android course but realized online education is lacking depth. you can take intro courses in 20 different subjects on lynda, udemy, udacity and treehouse. we want to be the place to learn everything there is to know about building iOS apps.
      - bigtunacan 11y ago
        You're doing great stuff on the iOS front so keep up the good work. The Android classes are high quality though as well; it's sad to see that you aren't continuing that track. I would love to see an Android online training equivalent of CommonsWare; and Udacity isn't that.
- MIKarlsen 11y ago
  Udemy has some crazy discount almost 90 % of the time... I'm constantly getting 75-95 % discounts on my courses. So that might be a factor as well.
  - eterm 11y ago
    This actually led to a really good course author having an issue with them over this. (Alan Richardson who hosted a very good technical testing course and a good selenium/webdriver course). I believe he still has those courses but he intially opted out of their discount program. A course he sold for $200 would have been sold for far less which undermined his own brand but also didn't give him a fair shot at earning from it, especially since he was helpful in responding to any questions I had. I was lucky and took the course when it was $200, it shortly after went up to $300 due to changes in revenue sharing based around coupon codes. This also meant he stopped offering for free a really helpful free course on technical testing. (The source of this information is through course announcements made at the time, I can publish them in full here.) This post from udemy to instructors is interesting reading: https://blog.udemy.com/announcement/ https://blog.udemy.com/announcement/ One benefit of the udemy over the pluralsight model is that years later I still have access to the course and can revisit it, without paying an on-going subscription. Pluralsight overall seems to have better content, at least from a software developer perspective.
    - bigtunacan 11y ago
      I think Pluralsight has consistently higher quality classes than Udemy, but that Udemy also has some great classes. You have to spend a bit more time looking at reviews before you buy on Udemy. Also you end up having to accept the fact that sometimes you will end up buying a course that isn't worthwhile. As an example of a non technical class; The Secrets to Drawing on Udemy is Amazing. I am a (bad) hobby artist in my spare time and this class has done more to help me with my drawing skills than any other book or class I've tried in the past; my kids have been going through it too and they absolutely love it. https://www.udemy.com/the-secrets-to-drawing/#/ https://www.udemy.com/the-secrets-to-drawing/#/ This is two of the benefits of Udemy over Pluralsight 1) On Pluralsight I would never see this class (well not currently anyway) because it doesn't fall within their accepted domain of classes. 2) I paid the $30 one time for this class and I can go back and review whenever I want and let my kids go back and use it a year later and not have to pay another subscription fee.

el_benhameen 11y ago

As someone who wants to use perhaps one or two--but certainly not all-- of these services, I'm curious which of these services you've found most valuable. I'm asking generally, though I'm mostly interested in compsci/dev topics, if that's helpful.

bigtunacan 11y ago
It depends a bit what specific stacks you are interested in. Pluralsight and Lynda's "all you can eat" monthly subscriptions are probably the best since they just have more classes all around. Lynda by and far has the most classes available. They have more tech classes than Pluralsight, but they also have classes in many unrelated categories as well. The flip side; I think Pluralsight holds content authors to a higher standard. Once Pluralsight was heavily focuses on .NET, but they've branched out a lot more. Coursera has some good stuff and it's free if you don't care about the cert. Their Functional Programming in Scala class is excellent.
moistgorilla 11y ago
not the person you are responding to but i've found udacity and linda to be the most valuable. Short and to the point videos are more useful to me than long winded lectures.
rahimnathwani 11y ago
"mostly interested in compsci/dev topics" Assuming you are looking for primarily video content: - Go deep into some recent-ish tech stack, e.g. React/Flux: Udemy - Learn foundational stuff, like math: Coursera - iOS: Bitfountain if you can afford it. Otherwise Udacity or Udemy. - Android: Udacity - Frequently need access to 'how do I do this thing that I know should take only 10 mins in app Y?' help: Lynda - ELI5: Code School or Treehouse - Anything teachable that's non-tech: Udemy
- bigtunacan 11y ago
  Bitfountain also has a great Android class set, which for the life of me I don't understand why it's not listed on their main page, but you can directly access it here. https://fedora.bitfountain.io/courses/android https://fedora.bitfountain.io/courses/android It's normally $149 for lifetime access, but they runs sales on it as low as $49.
  - nicholjs 11y ago
    we put a lot of effort into the android course but realized online education is lacking depth. you can take intro courses in 20 different subjects on lynda, udemy, udacity and treehouse. we want to be the place to learn everything there is to know about building iOS apps.
    - bigtunacan 11y ago
      You're doing great stuff on the iOS front so keep up the good work. The Android classes are high quality though as well; it's sad to see that you aren't continuing that track. I would love to see an Android online training equivalent of CommonsWare; and Udacity isn't that.
MIKarlsen 11y ago
Udemy has some crazy discount almost 90 % of the time... I'm constantly getting 75-95 % discounts on my courses. So that might be a factor as well.
- eterm 11y ago
  This actually led to a really good course author having an issue with them over this. (Alan Richardson who hosted a very good technical testing course and a good selenium/webdriver course). I believe he still has those courses but he intially opted out of their discount program. A course he sold for $200 would have been sold for far less which undermined his own brand but also didn't give him a fair shot at earning from it, especially since he was helpful in responding to any questions I had. I was lucky and took the course when it was $200, it shortly after went up to $300 due to changes in revenue sharing based around coupon codes. This also meant he stopped offering for free a really helpful free course on technical testing. (The source of this information is through course announcements made at the time, I can publish them in full here.) This post from udemy to instructors is interesting reading: https://blog.udemy.com/announcement/ https://blog.udemy.com/announcement/ One benefit of the udemy over the pluralsight model is that years later I still have access to the course and can revisit it, without paying an on-going subscription. Pluralsight overall seems to have better content, at least from a software developer perspective.
  - bigtunacan 11y ago
    I think Pluralsight has consistently higher quality classes than Udemy, but that Udemy also has some great classes. You have to spend a bit more time looking at reviews before you buy on Udemy. Also you end up having to accept the fact that sometimes you will end up buying a course that isn't worthwhile. As an example of a non technical class; The Secrets to Drawing on Udemy is Amazing. I am a (bad) hobby artist in my spare time and this class has done more to help me with my drawing skills than any other book or class I've tried in the past; my kids have been going through it too and they absolutely love it. https://www.udemy.com/the-secrets-to-drawing/#/ https://www.udemy.com/the-secrets-to-drawing/#/ This is two of the benefits of Udemy over Pluralsight 1) On Pluralsight I would never see this class (well not currently anyway) because it doesn't fall within their accepted domain of classes. 2) I paid the $30 one time for this class and I can go back and review whenever I want and let my kids go back and use it a year later and not have to pay another subscription fee.