Comment by ndriscoll
3 days ago
Most of the MOOCs were also watered down versions of a real course to attempt to make them accessible to a larger audience (e.g. the Stanford Coursera Machine Learning course that didn't want to assume any calculus or linear algebra background), which made them into more of a pointless brand advertisement than an actual learning resource.
> pointless brand advertisement
I understand what you mean, but I disagree it's mostly or pure branding.
I'd argue that even watered down versions can be useful as a bridge to more advanced courses and material, provided you have access to both.
Personally, I benefited from that ML course by Andrew Ng, because I got the vocabulary and introductory math knowledge to proceed to courses and textbooks on linear algebra. It wasn't the only thing that helped, sure, but it helped.
There were also other STEM and non-STEM MOOCs which brought me free knowledge I probably would've never pursued or paid for otherwise.