[nobody314159]

I think there is a certain amount of strategy behind this policy. By giving away top class lectures for free you destroy the market for 99% of the universities that aren't MIT/Stanford/CM etc.

You still have more people that want come to you and pay your fees than you can accept - but in the future they might not have a cheaper tier university as an alternative.

It's like Oxford publishing the OED. Even if you didn't make money from the book - whats it worth to your selling other courses overseas?