[yermierc]

Don't have strong opinions one way or the other on Knewton. That being said, I generally feel that enterprise software where you sell to institutions and publishers is fundamentally disconnected from software that's targeted at the users directly.

I would greatly prefer to hear students raving about a learning product rather than their instructors. In your case you seem to be a bit underwhelmed by what they offer.

[shobhitverma]

Very good work. I am extremely happy for you! I have no clue why some people expect this all to be either open source or free. I have personally invested a lot of money on building an adaptive learning tool (and two years of salary losses). We are not yet live, but when we are, I hope to have some revenue model as well.

[yermierc]

Thank you, it really means a lot since we've been working on this for over 3 years now (finally hiring employees this past month!). I wish the best of success to you too.

In reference to people wanting freebies - that's just human behavior. If they see sufficient value in a product (e.g. iPhones), then they will happily pay for it.