| I think two things contribute: 1. People think the point of education is credentials and free online courses don't typically come with credentials. 2. People routinely use price as a proxy for value. This makes it hard to feel confident that a free course is actually worthwhile. The nice thing about YC's free education is that neither of these applies. If you want to start a business, you mostly don't need credentials. (There are exceptions.) You mostly just need to know how to make it happen. They have a really good reputation. They know what they are talking about. Bonus points: They do this stuff for free because HN and Startup School are both part of their funnel. If you actually do start a business and hope to grow it big, they would like a piece of the action. So you know they are giving you good information because they want you to succeed so they can get a cut of some of the businesses that succeed that started out just consuming their free stuff. That's exactly how they make their money and there is a lot of money at stake, so it's worth it to them to give some stuff away for free. |