Best online learning platforms: Top course sites

Skillshare is a lot like a Medium, but for classes. Like Medium, anyone can contribute. But also like Medium, there is some degree of content curating, allowing higher quality material to surface to the site's promotional pages. Anyone can be a teacher at Skillshare, but until a teacher has 25 students, they're not paid. 

When I reached out to Skillshare for clarification, I was told: “One point we want to emphasize is that only those who meet our quality standards can teach on the platform. In the past few years, Skillshare has implemented a rigorous grading system, removed many low-quality courses, and has rolled out ‘Staff Picks' to highlight some of the most popular content.” 

The corporate spokesperson continued, “Skillshare is both an open platform (where anyone who meets our quality standards can teach) and a publisher of original content (aptly named Originals). An advantage of Skillshare's open model platform is the ability to keep a pulse on the types of content the community is creating and watching. This enables Skillshare to better predict future topics and courses that will be in demand.”

Classes are focused on three main segments: Create, Build, and Thrive. Create classes include art, music, photography, writing, animation, and various maker skills. Build is about business building, so you find courses on analytics, entrepreneurship, and marketing. And Thrive is about lifestyle and productivity.

Skillshare wins our Holy Cow, Batman Award for Stupendous Price Increases. There are some free classes (these help new teachers build up student followers). But, since we last looked at Skillshare in September 2020, the main program jumped from a $9.99-per-month plan by 3x to a $32/mo plan. You can save a few bucks by buying a whole year at $167.88 (which works out to $13.99/mo).

Finally, I have to criticize Skillshare for hiding their pricing. You have to first create an account to be able to see current pricing. Hiding pricing until after a user signs up is unacceptable. Period.

Pros:

• Some courses, if you can separate the wheat from the chaff, are great
• Instructors bring personal life learning experience to their subjects
• Good selection of skills-based courses

Cons:

• They go out of their way to hide pricing
• Enormous price increase over recent years
• Mixed bag of quality, almost anyone can sign up to teach