Comment by TomasBM

They're still around and offering new online courses. I hope they don't have any problems to keep afloat, because they do offer useful material at the very least.

I agree it's hard, but I think it's because initially the lecturers were involved in the online community, which can be tiring and unrewarding even if you don't have other obligations.

I think the courses should have purely standalone material that lecturers can publish, earn extra money, and refresh the content when it makes sense. Maybe platform moderators could help with some questions or grading, but it's even easier to have chatbot support for that nowadays. Also, platforms really need to improve.

So, I think the problem with MOOCs has been the execution, not the concept itself.