
Why MasterClass Isn’t Really About Mastery - occamschainsaw
https://napkinmath.substack.com/p/why-masterclass-isnt-really-about
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kiba
Seems to me that MasterClass is basically the Great Courses except much
slicker and is funded by venture vultures. We'll see how long they will last
until it get ruined.

Beside, I don't really care if the company is really selling X or Y. Clearly,
their product contain real valuable knowledge.

However, if you're in the pursuit of knowledge, just watching it will likely
result in jack-squat retention. I know this because I watched a whole lecture
about the industrial revolution, and can't retain anything beyond the basic
overview, if at that.

Master Class appears to have workbooks and exercises, so retention are going
to be much better than one of the series in the Great Courses.

Still, 90% of the value is gained by learners doing the work and putting in
the time.

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ageitgey
If you have ever written an educational book or sold educational material, the
first thing you learn is that the market for actual mastery-level educational
material is infinitesimal. The only way to make money (without charging
astronomical, university-enrollment-level prices) is to make content that
appeals to a mass audience.

Imagine you wanted to revolutionize higher education, so you build a big-
budget website with excellent graduate-level CS content at an affordable
price. How big is that market? There are only about 2,000 CS PhDs and 40,000
CS masters degrees issued in the US each year. That's a tiny market compared
to the many millions of people who could benefit from learning basic
programming to automate a boring part of their non-programming job. There are
teenagers in India producing zero-budget PHP tutorials on YouTube in their
bedrooms everyday that easily reach 10x your total addressable market. It's a
business non-starter. And that's for a popular, lucrative field like CS -
imagine trying to launch an educational product in a smaller, less lucrative
field like Anthropology or Sociology.

The only viable way to make something like MasterClass work is to aim it at
adults with disposable cash who want to broaden their skillset while being
entertained but aren't trying to become an expert in the field. There's
nothing wrong with that. MasterClass (and the numerous similar products, from
ad-supported YouTube content to many providers of paid courses) are often
really great and entertaining.

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cm2187
I don't think anyone could take it seriously as education. I see as an
interesting interview, where someone will discuss technical things about his
art, great for geeks. The one from Hans Zimmer where he discusses how he
progressively comes up with the music for a film is interesting, or Ron Howard
analyses an Indiana Jones sequence, etc. Don't think it is meant to make you a
composer or a director.

Kind of like a cockpit video for planes.

~~~
michelb
This rings true for me. The analysis of the craft, and looking over the
shoulder was really great. Hearing a 'grandmaster' talk about their profession
and giving a little demo is quite interesting. There are some real gems in the
catalogue.

