Paying for online courses: Good or Bad

Let's get right to the point: how often you think "ah, paying 15$ for udemy or coursera course is not worth it"?

Of course, because you can find everything for free, right?

Take a step back and consider something known as perceived value of digital/physical goods. The reason physical books for example are still alive is because people treat them as an extension of themselves, whereas online course in Java can be treated as something less important and valuable.

The reality, however, is that you should count the value it brings and the time you spent enjoying the purchase. The average lunch in London can be approx. 8$ (coffee, sandwich and a cookie), you enjoy it for abstractly 40 min and then leave the cafe (money spent, value received).

Time in this instance (as well as in our whole life) is the only limited resource we should really care about. Time is strongly linked to happiness as with this finite resource you can choose whether to spend time with the important ones, make money, read a book, watch a film, do laundry etc. It is the one and only thing we have in our lives and if we value it properly, it can make us better and happier as a result.

Now back to online courses.

While I was learning coding, I have gone through tons of material online, normally thinking that I can always find a free alternative and make the most out of it. However there is a trick that I didn't know about at that time.

The free stuff is free, just because there is a better paid version

(read it one more time)

Most of the free programming courses that I found useful linked me to a more detailed paid ones and while it was fine to grasp the basics, when I wanted more - it always required me to pay. It is understandable though, a professional developer invest their time and effort, share tips and their experience and does expect to get a penny back. And we all want to learn from the best, right?

This is just how it works.

Google Taylor's motivation theory - he proved that the main incentive for people is actually money (and not perks, benefits, recognition - although that also counts).

Which is why it is not unfair, ugly or bad when someone wants to get paid for what they do, it is unfortunately how our world works🤷🏻‍♂️

With online courses it is also the fact that the guys combine and filter all the informational rubbish that wouldn't get you anywhere, add their own unique experience on top - and there we have a perfect recipe for good course. The logic is dead simple - you can spend 10 hours filtering, testing and finding the good content yourself or pay for a highly ranked course online and get it all right away. As a result, 10 hours saved, which you can actually use to make something with the new skills you learnt and make money (often more than you spent on the course).

☝🏻Finally, my personal statistics show that I am more likely to finish the course that I paid for than the one I got for free. We tend to value money that we spend and want to get the most out of it.

So what are you waiting for? Stop complaining about unfair, money-focused world, go get yourself a course for a few bucks in Neural Networks, AI, Blockchain, Mobile development and learn something that can actually make you rich and let you enjoy your time more efficiently 👊🏻. Good luck!

Agree? Join @thefrontend

(might even get a few dev courses for free, who knows 😀)