[johnohara]

If the video course were free, what would you be willing to pay for additional course materials? (i.e. the book, exercise solutions, exclusive live sessions, etc.)

I'm not trying to be confrontational here. Online education/coursework/learning needs a pricing structure that makes sense. One that enables thousands of qualified instructors to participate without going broke in the process.

I think I understand Zed's "freemium" model in that context. But I disagree with his approach.

Our local high school district pays some teachers over a $100,000 a year. That's 3,448 students at $29 each -- per year. That's roughly equivalent to the entire student population!

Look for yourself: http://www.familytaxpayers.org/salary.php

Find a district: type in '230' Select 'Cons HSD 230' from the list presented.

There is no disruption in education until there is parity between what Zed is able to make and what these people make.

[zedshaw]

Well, the course is just cheap now because it's in-progress. This lets me get it out for immediate feedback, find bugs, and test that it works with students. In the near future the price will change, but the HTML version will most likely still stay up because answering student questions in comments makes the book so much better.

[jonknee]

> There is no disruption in education until there is parity between what Zed is able to make and what these people make.

I don't think Zed has trouble making $100,000 a year.

[Sambdala]

What you're talking about is rebuilding the status quo in a different form.

Disruption is taking a $100,000/year teacher from teaching 30 students a year to teaching 30,000.

[johnohara]

Generally, a teacher making $100,000 teaches about 125. That's $800.00 per student per year (aprox. $5.00 per student per day). Teaching 30,000 requires a completely different infrastructure. @ $29.00 each, that's $870,000 per year -- roughly 6 teachers plus support staff.

5,000 students per instructor.

My point in all of this is that free is not free and that those who are willing to build courses and content at this scale need to be compensated somehow for their time.

Being able to make a living will draw more people. More instructors, more classes, more choices, better classes, better content, etc.

This is important point that seems to be missing from the online education discussion.

[Sambdala]

"Generally, a teacher making $100,000 teaches about 125."

Only if you count all the classes they teach every day. However, kids don't come to school for just one class a day. Each teacher gets 15 to 30 kids 8 times a day for 1/8th of the day (assuming 8 classes a day). Not that that's really the important point here...

"My point in all of this is that free is not free and that those who are willing to build courses and content at this scale need to be compensated somehow for their time."

He is getting compensated though. At $29.00 a pop. The fact that he puts free material out there will almost definitely raise his compensation, not lower it.

"More instructors, more classes"

You don't necessarily need or want this. If one teacher can teach xx,000 people in a given subject, the teaching market will start to resemble a more 'winner take most' market, allowing those who aren't as good at teaching to find use elsewhere.

It will also allow everyone to learn from the best instead of only 125 people who happen to be in the right school district.

[mkr-hn]

Disruption happens when someone demonstrates that the existing system is flawed by creating a better system. It will cost what it costs. You sound like a traditional publisher complaining that they can't charge $20 for schlock and abuse authors anymore.