Comment by lisbbb
As someone who was probably a consumer of such courses, thanks, first off. But second, what happened with me was I would be on the bench at my company and be going hard at training on various tools and technologies and then get whipsawed by them into another direction completely and never once used the thing I was learning in my actual work. So I gave up on training. I would pretend to do training, but basically just screwed around doing whatever I wanted--I learned auto painting and dent repair while on the bench, basically anything. The last few years of my career sucked anyways. So yeah, I can understand why your business has dried up--there's no point in actually learning anything ahead of actually needing to use it. There just isn't. That goes for certs, too. People are burned the hell out on tech because there is so much of it now. It used to be you could do a bunch of Java certs or whatever and have a career. Now, you have to know and be experienced with EVERYTHING and that just is not possible when every technology has 2-5 competing clones of it.
Yep, I know what you mean.
It skews back-end stats too. For example if someone buys a course, I hope they take it in full so they feel happy and fulfilled but in reality a good portion never start. It's like Steam games. Some people just like collecting digital goods knowing they exist and that gives comfort.
Massive course platforms are still thriving it seems so the market is there but it is way more saturated than 10 years ago. My first Docker course in 2015 was like maybe 1 out of 5 courses out there, but now there's 5,000 courses and Docker's documentation has gotten a lot better over time.
I haven't figured out how to make things work, I just know I love tech, solving real world problems, documenting my journey (either through blog posts or courses) and traveling. It would be amazing to be able to travel the world and make courses. Back when I started 10 years ago I didn't realize I like traveling so much so I squandered that extra time.