Why I no longer offer free courses on Udemy
I wanted to quickly tell you why I no longer offer free courses on Udemy. The reason is a little obvious if you have worked a little with the platform or are following its pace a little, but it is because about two, three or four years ago, the platform was suddenly updated and no longer allows free courses to be longer than 2 hours, which seems to me to be a momentary strangulation for anyone, whether they are a content creator or a person who wants to consume the brutal resource.
Only two hours in length for the free courses
Instead of placing ads like YouTube, they strangle the experience
Because you can see the platform, as they say, the competition would be YouTube, which is a fairly open platform with many things and well, it's disorganized, and this is where Udemy could win a little, which is a platform that could be or be considered a little more organized because of how it is structured, while on YouTube you get a lot of material, mind you, I'm not criticizing it, I spend my time consuming educational videos on YouTube, but as much as it is, it is a much more open platform, that is to say, you basically search for a keyword or by keywords and from there you get your bearings. Of course, there are also many training courses there, but as they say, the course or I dare say again, it's my opinion, they are more loose videos, that is to say, how to do such a thing in such a technology of that type, while here they are always from scratch until they have an acceptable level at least. So instead of taking advantage of it more or less.
How YouTube works, which is based on advertising. Well, I know that advertising bothers you, but if you are going to take a free course, I understand that the platform somehow wants to make it sustainable instead of placing advertising, to give an example, because that is how this platform works, YouTube, and it has gone quite well. Well, on Udemy they prefer to do this type of strangulation, which I consider to be basically saying something terrible, and again, it is a constructive criticism that I make, and obviously my opinion may or may not be agreed with you, but I think we are clear that.
Instead of setting a maximum duration of 2 hours, because in two hours you in software development can do absolutely nothing more than a mere introduction, even though it is in my case I don't make introductions that simple, at least I present the technology in a basic way, and from there you can continue to scale, but 2 hours is insufficient, but brutally. So that's basically the reason. And here I also want to take advantage of it and here you also have a comparative table in which it tells you a paid course versus a free course, so here you can also see it. Well, obviously you have the video as is, you can see the certification. I don't know what people do with that, but, well, they have it, well, the free one doesn't have it, sorry.
From the free courses, you cannot ask questions
This part does seem to me Really very How can I tell you it's a little bit it may be a little difficult for you to understand me but it seems very out of place to me, that is to say the part of questions and answers, whether it is again questions and answers at the class level or the direct message in this case the content creator, which would be me, especially this one, I think it seems to me to say the least a lack of respect because, you see, you usually use the platforms and, whatever, whatever is worth it, another is the redundancy, you as a content creator, you use the platform. Of course, this platform has certain guidelines that you have to respect, for example.
On YouTube it's always about not being rude, so to speak, not sending hate messages, so to speak, you have to respect those guidelines, but that's it. For the rest, you use the platform, not the other way around, the platform shouldn't use you and that's a bit what.
I see and what I mean by this, the questions and answers part is a job that is completely the responsibility of the content creator, that is to say, it is 100% the responsibility of the content creator because this platform simply means that the person who writes receives the message directly again to the content creator and does absolutely nothing.
Of course, the panel that Udemy has implemented is being used, that is to say, the content box, you write if you send it and what is and that message that is saved in the database is to establish the person to whom you want to send it, of course, it uses, as they say, that implementation that they make, but well, it is basically a text box, but what is the work itself, which is to answer, is done 100% by the instructor, so it seems rude to me that they come to limit you like that and it is a bit what I am telling you.
The decision to answer should be up to the content creator
As much as they are, they should give you the tools and you decide how to use them, rather than block you and castrate you from one with this type of policies because again, we do this, we are the creators of content, udmi has absolutely nothing to do with this, but here you can see what the focus of this platform is in which it does not seek that you use the platform, which is again how it should be, you use the platform and you adapt it to your taste and based on the criticisms etc. of the consumers, you were adapting. But it is about that and obviously some guidelines that you should respect. But this is how I see it the other way around because it is the one that is limiting you, therefore it is indicating to you how you have to work in a rather absurd way and I was telling you that this seems worse to me because, you see, when you make content like this for free, it is precisely to be able to give a small introduction of something, some presentation, and you can obtain that interest from a potential client who wants to hire your content and therefore this potential client is going to want to contact you and in this case it is by sending you a message and the healthiest thing would be that I will send it to you directly. But well, here they also block it, of course. I would understand that, well, since they limit you here, what people would do is send direct messages, but here you can also see that this platform is a disaster and it really isn't well implemented at all because it gives you that ambiguity and people don't exactly know or they overlook how they should use each of the features.
Udemy blocks limits and other synonyms
So what does it do? It blocks everything, but well again it's my opinion, that's why I'm always criticizing this platform a lot and that's why I'm making these videos so that you understand a little bit my point of view and in case you also want to use it to create content, I obviously recommend it to you because if not I wouldn't take the time, but I think the most important thing here is that you understand how it works and that being said, that you use it, no matter how much it is the platform and that it doesn't let you use it, which is what I consider the most important thing and that's why at least that's what I consider again in my opinion. I use DMS purely as a viewer, as a viewer in which obviously in order for you to be able to access the content you have to acquire it, and therefore it would be the part of the online store, which is what I take advantage of, but as far as functional terms are concerned.
Udemy is only good for a player with an online store
I use it purely as a viewer, here I don't even want to send messages, here I don't even want to be asked here, although I answer the questions as I have told you, it is something that I have not yet been able to solve because even though it is like the majority of people who are acquiring the material do it to learn and not to do damage or to be attacked, therefore I answer this way still when they ask me, although I have said and I always say it at the beginning of all the courses I prefer that you answer me in another way, for example through discord and it is precisely for that reason because.
By having such absurd policies and these updates that I consider truly so absurd and each time they limit you more, I see that this platform cannot be more than a mere viewer for your courses, and of course taking advantage of the part of the online store, without that, then this would not make any sense at all, so nothing. That was the opinion that I wanted to leave you and we will see each other in another video.
- Andrés Cruz
Develop with Laravel, Django, Flask, CodeIgniter, HTML5, CSS3, MySQL, JavaScript, Vue, Android, iOS, Flutter