Charging for certification is fine. Creating exams and preventing cheating has a cost.
Another thing that is fine charging for is dedicated 1-to-1 tutor time. This is something Udacity is doing as of 2022.
www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042815/how-coursera-works-makes-money.asp has a good mention:
MOOCs were first created by people with utopian visions for the internet. This means the idea for platforms like Coursera was likely conceived without a business plan in mind. Nonetheless, Coursera has managed to monetize its platform. It is worth noting, however, that monetization has lead to the effective elimination of the original MOOC idea, which is predicated on ideals like free and open access, as well as the building of online communities.
Coursera users must pay to engage with the material in a meaningful way and take courses for individualistic purposes. This has been a consistent trend among all major online education platforms.
and it links to: www.freecodecamp.org/news/massive-open-online-courses-started-out-completely-free-but-where-are-they-now-1dd1020f59/, very good article!
That is a fundamental guiding principle of OurBigBook.com. The educational content must be licensed CC BY-SA!
Perhaps the most reliable way of reaching this state is E-learning websites must allow students to create learning content.
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