[ssivark]

> Assuming they could earn a 20% stake in 100% of the market, that's like $1.53bn.

That makes no sense. Why would/should instructors+students continue to give them 20% commission for follow-up classes beyond the first one? It seems like just wishful thinking. The app store situation is very unusual (monopoly/monopsony), and does not apply in this context.

[cortesoft]

Yeah, this is the problem Wag has been having... and they ended up trying some draconian things to try to prevent people from working outside the system.

These market place ideas don't work nearly as well for businesses where there are long term, repeated, interactions between seller and purchaser. They work best when there is a one time exchange, because a market is really getting paid to make an introduction.

edit: I see now that many people made this argument much more eloquently in other comments on this thread.

[rubyn00bie]

Isn't that what VCs are trying for? Or rather, the nature of their investments? We're talking hypotheticals to analyze the potential of the business, saying it "makes no sense" doesn't mean much. We're trying to gauge an idea and to do so we have to be able to look at the potential.

[cb504]

If there is a medium to high drop out rate, and teachers are constantly looking for new student to fill their schedule (even 30% of their schedule), it could well be worth it.

[hobofan]

By providing some small value-add products that are not possible easy for individual instructors to provide, but customers like to see. E.g. nicer scheduling of lessons or a way to share sheet music with the customers?

[onion2k]

Very few people would give up 20% of their income for "some small value-add products."

[hobofan]

With platforms like these the choice isn't really up to the supplier, but to the consumer. The consumers come to expect those value-adds and so the suppliers have to switch to the platform (where the revenue share is opaque to the consumer) to get gigs.

The 20% cut also does sound rather extreme, but if you build a very good product where you can end up charging even more than the usual price, the 20% isn't taken away completely from the supplier, and might end up more like a 10% actual cut.

[onion2k]

With platforms like these the choice isn't really up to the supplier, but to the consumer.

Once the platform has a significant number of suppliers, sure. If the platform is new then attracting suppliers is the number one problem to solve, and that's really hard if it's too expensive.