[Archit3ch]

Counter-intuitively, a free community adds more value by attracting people of all levels. Paid communities attract beginners (who are incentivised to pay for education), but not experts ("Why am I paying for a Slack channel?"). Spammers are easily handled by enforcing community rules.

[celdon25]

Hard disagree. There is incentive to pay for education (particularly the type offered by CodeCrafters) regardless of experience level, but the more engaged, more motivated, more mindful personality types will be more likely to make the connection that it's well worth the investment.

A free community is going to have more lurkers that aren't engaged, aren't committed, and may post one thing if they even post at all, before slithering away. Drive-by-comments would be more common. It would not add value, it would be like most of the rest of the public Internet.

Additionally, you might have missed this from the OP:

> First, we cater to people with programming experience. There are tons of introductory “learn to code” resources out there, but surprisingly little once you get past the basics. Good programmers want to get better and to develop in areas where they’re not strong yet, and that’s what we help with.