I haven't ever said that doing good shouldn't be profitable. Please don't put words in my mouth.
I've simply said that it feels like profitability here, especially given the target market of this venture, is a much more important goal than is being disclosed, and that's a problem. Further, there are already free offerings doing just what this proposes to do, so before anyone pays for it, it should be made clear what advantages this has over them.
You actually went further than disputing the goals, you specifically said "though I don't think such education should be paywalled for monetization". So unless I am misunderstanding, you seem to begin with a negative bias towards education in exchange for money. Furthermore, I find it strange to focus so much on the monetary goal as some sort of sinister motive. When Elon Musk tells me he wants to make an electric car, I believe that goal. I don't think to myself "well this car is for profit, so what's really going on here Mr. Musk?". When DropBox tells me they want make it easier for people to put their data in the cloud, I don't question their real motives because they charge for it. Yes, companies make money. Yes, they need profit to survive. I guess I just don't think these two goals intrinsically conflict. I personally find it somewhat wonderful when people find a way to take something they care about and charge for it so they can focus on it entirely, instead of only in their free time.
Additionally, so what if there are already free offerings? There's room for both. I agree people should look into all the options before choosing one, that's just common sense. Perhaps the free one is better, perhaps not? This is a purely voluntary thing here, so I see no harm in a paid-for alternative. You'll for example see many people on Hacker News telling startups "please charge for your product so I know it won't go away in the future." It's possible that the same applies here. By pricing this product the motivation I see is a clear incentive to continue improving the product full-time, as opposed to when you can find people to help out.
I mean paywalled in the sense of you pay up front for access to something without a good way to determine the quality of what you'll get. When I buy a book, I have extensive reviews, recommendations, and I can go to a store and flip through the pages to see if I will benefit from it. Schools tend to advertise very much towards what kind of quality education you'll get, and accreditation is in some ways a guarantee of that. I just really dislike that model of monetization.
My focus on monetization isn't that "any motive to make money instantly undermines the effort." It's that in this very specific case, with this specific target audience, it seems extremely suspect.
Sure there is room for both, and I don't dispute that. I was pointing out that if we're going to ask people to pay for this service, especially schools that will use tax money, that it should be made very clear what benefits it has over what is already available for free.
Comments
I haven't ever said that doing good shouldn't be profitable. Please don't put words in my mouth.
I've simply said that it feels like profitability here, especially given the target market of this venture, is a much more important goal than is being disclosed, and that's a problem. Further, there are already free offerings doing just what this proposes to do, so before anyone pays for it, it should be made clear what advantages this has over them.
You actually went further than disputing the goals, you specifically said "though I don't think such education should be paywalled for monetization". So unless I am misunderstanding, you seem to begin with a negative bias towards education in exchange for money. Furthermore, I find it strange to focus so much on the monetary goal as some sort of sinister motive. When Elon Musk tells me he wants to make an electric car, I believe that goal. I don't think to myself "well this car is for profit, so what's really going on here Mr. Musk?". When DropBox tells me they want make it easier for people to put their data in the cloud, I don't question their real motives because they charge for it. Yes, companies make money. Yes, they need profit to survive. I guess I just don't think these two goals intrinsically conflict. I personally find it somewhat wonderful when people find a way to take something they care about and charge for it so they can focus on it entirely, instead of only in their free time.
Additionally, so what if there are already free offerings? There's room for both. I agree people should look into all the options before choosing one, that's just common sense. Perhaps the free one is better, perhaps not? This is a purely voluntary thing here, so I see no harm in a paid-for alternative. You'll for example see many people on Hacker News telling startups "please charge for your product so I know it won't go away in the future." It's possible that the same applies here. By pricing this product the motivation I see is a clear incentive to continue improving the product full-time, as opposed to when you can find people to help out.
I mean paywalled in the sense of you pay up front for access to something without a good way to determine the quality of what you'll get. When I buy a book, I have extensive reviews, recommendations, and I can go to a store and flip through the pages to see if I will benefit from it. Schools tend to advertise very much towards what kind of quality education you'll get, and accreditation is in some ways a guarantee of that. I just really dislike that model of monetization.
My focus on monetization isn't that "any motive to make money instantly undermines the effort." It's that in this very specific case, with this specific target audience, it seems extremely suspect.
Sure there is room for both, and I don't dispute that. I was pointing out that if we're going to ask people to pay for this service, especially schools that will use tax money, that it should be made very clear what benefits it has over what is already available for free.