How do I stay afloat with a forever free online course?

This problem has existed for a long time, personal opinion, some high-quality services, unlike the open source features in software projects, do not have the ability to improve the quality of the entire course with the help of other people's advancement, here we refer to the ability to modify the course content, like, you can't change a part of the **, because a part of the course may change many other attributes of the course, in my opinion, high-quality service should be paid, why free? From the emergence of the Internet in China to the present, the fixed thinking of netizens, a kind of free and excellent idea, is not conducive to business operations, of course, there are some courses that make some people act spontaneously, this kind of free will more or less have some purpose, may be to promote other aspects of his or the popularity of things.

So what is the future of paid courses? It should be to improve professionalism and pertinence, choose the right people, and more importantly, it is necessary to make potential consumers recognize the value of the course! That's the most important thing, and there's a lot of talk right now that we should invest more money in our brains, and these consumers are going to be very focused on the changes that come with paid courses, which is what paid courses can bring to me directly after I'm done?

What can be changed? The paid language courses are the most obvious and easy to measure, and my language skills have improved significantly and I have passed some language certification exams.

For free courses, the free here is for users, and the big platform behind the free courses, they are investors, they have contributed money and efforts, they at least hope to bring an increase in traffic, there are more MOOCs like this, after the increase in the amount, the popularity of the whole ** has increased, and the benefits brought are also obvious, advertising, the sale of related goods derived from it, so it doesn't matter if it's free, the key is how to attract more people, the center here is people, Only with an audience can there be hope of survival, and the free course will not die.

First of all, if it is a free online course, it is basically impossible. The so-called pure online course refers to the company's business only online courses, and no other content. The most typical example is Geek Academy and MOOC.com, which started a few years ago.

In the past, these companies followed a purely online (online course) model, and (to attract followers) all the courses were free. Their funds** come from investment, including angel rounds, A rounds, etc., and naturally they have funds to be able to operate and maintain and expand their business. However, the purpose of investors is not to "play in the water", but to hope that the company can make a profit in the future, and it is impossible to invest in it endlessly.

And these institutions must begin to transform, and they are no longer free, so now, these once free institutions, after attracting fans, have begun to turn to the model of free courses + paid courses, and have also begun to develop from online to offline.

Secondly, if you really want to do education (and I would also like to be able to do education with your heart, maybe we are "very compatible"), then you can't rush. First of all, you need to do a good course, if you don't have a good course, then even if you do it, it's free, no one will come to see it. Next, we need to move forward slowly, and we can't hope that the entire online course will be produced in a few days.

In other words, it's a matter of being down-to-earth and taking it one step at a time). After that, there must be a variety of other businesses to assist the entire online course, which can ensure that the production of online courses has basic funds**, and it will not work to "subsidize money" for a long time. In addition, you also need to have a team to promote your online courses and let more people know about them, such as operating on WeChat, Weibo, etc.