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Why stop there? I hope we'll get an online version of every university course out there!

• porfirio 15y ago
  Why should they? I think these courses are great, but how is Stanford benefiting from them? If Stanford has to expend all this effort without realizing a benefit of some sort, why should they continue? I'm worried they'll stop, so it'd be reassuring to know they benefit somehow. Self interest aside, this is a winner take all market. The best producers aren't limited to selling their wares to a finite number of customers, as they are with brick and mortar universities. It's like a musician performing live music in local bars, versus selling his album on iTunes - a man can only be in one place at one time, so the demand of local bars can afford several bands play and fame. But for privately listening to music, recordable media means there is no limit to how many fans a superstar can accomodate, lowering the demand for all the runner-ups, to the point where no one but the top stars can stay in business. But of course, there's still room for several players across subjects, rather than within subjects. Lady Gaga does not threaten Bob Dylan much. If Stanford successfully finds a way to monetize this model, they will have a large competitive advantage. They will be able to lure the best professors in the world with handsome sums, because they are best placed to sell their lectures to hundreds of thousands. It would take a significant outlay of capital for anyone else to get a start.
• _delirium 15y ago
  I think this might actually favor consolidation. With physical classrooms, you need hundreds of universities, but once a few universities are teaching an online Algorithms course in which thousands of people can enroll, it may be hard for additional universities, especially those with less exalted brand names than Stanford, to attract interest/students.