Tracks and stages you complete made free

I think a good example would be an art gallery. You might have paid to go in and see a piece before but that does not allow you to go back any time you want and see the piece without paying. Treehouse is a company who provides a service, education. Everytime you watch the video they are educating you not just the first time you see it. I believe that if you don't have a membership you can't view the content. I know money disappears fast but that doesn't mean you don't owe them payment for the education they are providing.

Well you cant is the simple answer to that and you can also put more things in place to stop that happening, you cant skip stages in a track and must complete the others before moving on.

Only fully completed tracks are viewable with no membership and things like one time lessons how to use git etc will not become free you would still need a membership.

I am purely talking tracks and the stages in that track that you have complete.

For example if I complete the PHP track I should have access to that on this account regardless of my membership status, however because I am only half way through the webdesign track I have no access to that without a membership.

Well no because while you say they could charge $5000 up front you're overlooking that if money was my main motive here I can learn everything Treehouse teaches for free on the internet.

Im here paying for the membership because I want to learn and improve my skills, Treehouse provides a great platform and I choice to pay for a membership here because im actually really grateful for all those who put in all the hard work to make this place what is and making completed tracks free for those people would not lose them any money at all, if anything it would keep me coming back more often and in turn giving them more opportunities to release something else I would see worth paying for.

If im over on a free tutorial site learning coding from them im spending 0 money at Treehouse, I think its not unreasonable to ask for completed tracks to be free to that user.

EDIT: They already have this business plan in action pretty much, stages within tracks are locked till you complete the previous tier and all they would have to do is unlock it all once a user has completed the track.

I can't say this for certain, but I don't think any of the education sources like Treehouse, Code School, etc. that are subscription based allow you to go back and review completed content if you don't have an active subscription.

A few years ago, Code School, Lynda.com, and Sitepoint (now Learnable) allowed you to purchase individual courses. If you purchased the individual course, you had lifetime access to the course to watch and repeat it as many times as you wanted. A lot of these courses though were easily $30 to $60+ per course. All these sites no longer sell courses individually for various reasons and have all switched to the subscription model. Again without an active subscription, I don't think you can't access any content.

That being said, Treehouse does allow you to download videos for offline viewing. If there are particular items, as you pointed out, that you need to watch several times, then those are probably some of the first ones you should be downloading so you can reference again in the future.

As Ricky pointed out, Treehouse is providing you a service and deserves to be compensated for it because you are still utilizing their resources like bandwidth to access their content.They have to be profitable in order to exist and continue putting out great content. It's a tricky thing finding that balance between teaching as many people as possible and keeping the company profitable so it's there in the future.

killerphp have a great course on OOP PHP

http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/object-oriented-php-for-beginners--net-12762 another great tutorial.

The list goes on and on, Treehouse is "new" compared to a lot of other places out there and there are thousands of forums, blog, videos, courses and books for free all over the internet that teach things Treehouse havnt even got round to yet.

I understand the concept of Treehouse paying for the memberships give you access to all the content and I should be happy I don't have to pay for each course. I honestly get it and see your points but in my personal opinion I think content you complete / achieve should remain open to you.

I don’t think the comparison of a physical product like a book is comparable to a intangible product like an eduction service.

Using your PHP book as an example, you paid outright for a copy of the book to have it in a medium that allows you to access it and read it whenever you need or desire. You paid for the printing or a digital copy. There are no recurring costs associated with the book. With an education service that delivers content online, you have a number of recurring expenses.

I’m fairly certain that Treehouse thought thoroughly about this before they decided to make content inaccessible if you do not have an active membership. With your membership, you’re not just paying for the videos; you’re paying for access to the forums when you need help or have a question and you’re paying to use the Code Challenge and quizzes to validate you are learning the information being delivered.

Since your issue is with not accessing the videos, does that mean you want access to the videos only, but are okay with not having access to the forums, quizzes, Workspaces, downloadable files, and Code Challenges?

I imagine it would be a hefty investment in terms of man hours and money to implement functionality to the website that would allow people not currently subscribed to only access videos and not have access to other functions of the website. It might not be a worthy investment for what could be a small subset of people. (I’m just guessing)

Robert, you stated that “making completed tracks free for those people would not lose them any money at all.” There is no such thing as free. The high quality videos that we stream and download I’m sure are pretty bandwidth intensive. Someone has to pay for that bandwidth. The bandwidth needed to load a page that is just text like the free PHP tutorial you posted is minuscule compared to the bandwidth needed for videos. In both cases, it’s still costing the website owner something; just one more than other.

Can I learn HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, etc. for free elsewhere on the web? Absolutely! But I have a TON of bookmarks of tutorial pages like the PHP one you linked that I have never gone back and worked on. Why? Because following along to written directions doesn’t work for me or motivates me to learn it. What makes Treehouse so worthwhile for me is HOW they deliver the content. I can follow along with the videos and work on whatever project is presented, what I’m learning is tested through quizzes and Code Challenges, if I’m stuck, I can find answers on the exact content I’m working on in the forums, and at the end, I get a shiny new badge on my profile which completely appeals to the gamer in me.

I guess what it comes down is, for Treehouse, does doing what you suggest make sense from a practical and financial perspective? Is there enough demand? Would such an investment be worthwhile; would they realize an actual return on investment?

From a business perspective, if the demand wasn’t there and they crunched the numbers, they wouldn’t go through with it because it’s not a good use of resources (people and money). You can’t expect them to do something that while it might benefit us as their subscribers, would cause them to hemorrhage money and maybe not be around next year.

In the end, you feel how you feel and Treehouse will continue to make decisions that balance what are in the best interest for the future of the company and their service and for its students and subscribers.

Of course you cant Andrew, however if they record your lectures or bootcamp would they allow you to have those videos? from personal experience the answer to that would be yes.

I have a friend who did law in university and every single lecture was online for him to download if he missed one or needed to go back and watch a lecture from before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwUEjgbs02w

A prime example of things being recorded and free for people to watch over and over.

I really do feel like I am coming across all whiny here and that's not what the intention was here at all, I just wondered if something like a unlock content after completing tracks would be something Treehouse would do.

Yes Hazel, all I would want is the videos the code challenges and quizzes are not included in that for me personally as im more interested in watching a video back to see how something was done and understanding it more.

I always find it fascinating when people offer ideas that involve changing a business plan.

• Offer one-on-one mentorship
• Offer the ability to purchase a single Workshop video
• Offer the ability to view content from completed tracks for free for life

These ideas always share something in common, they require a different pricing structure and business plan from Treehouse's current one.

I would call it adapting a business plan and if you go into a project and still have the very same business plan at the end I would safely predict your business didn't last long.

Things change and just like technology if you don't adapt, learn and push forward you get left behind.

One-on-one mentorship is actually a great idea and you could take advantage of hundreds of students at your disposal to do it:

Take the students that have been here a long time and excel within a specific area, HTML, CSS, JS, PHP etc and have them mentor other students for a reduction in membership maybe even a profit share from the people they mentor etc.

Buying single workshop videos instead of paying for a membership is another good idea for those who just want a specific topic and have no interest in anything else. There would be some issues and things to address just like any other project you take on but it is in my opinion a good idea, personally I would rather pay for a membership and have access to everything but that is just how I feel about it.

Another great idea is certificates for completing tracks and tests like W3schools have that provide people with something to walk into a interview with or just something to hang on your wall in the office.

Maybe we should all just stop putting ideas forward as people seem to be really dismissive about them.

You just changed what you said:

"Always of these are great ideas but they all share something in common, they require a different pricing structure and business plan from Treehouse's current one."

Not very well either because now the sentence doesn't make sense, ill just remind of what you said at the start (just the jist of it from how I interpreted it) I love reading these silly ideas, silly people have.

Don't worry ive learnt my lesson, no more offering silly ideas from me!

Andrew Chalkey: "Could you go back to a code bootcamp or college course for free?"

Actually, yes you can and many offer this. Bloc allows you access to the class you took and access to updates to the course after your 'bootcamp or mentorship'. Many Colleges offer the same thing for your major you can audit a class for free for no credit or grades.

So Yes, you can go back to a bootcamp or college for a course free.

Currently, I'm fine with the yearly, monthly fee.. although a little unhappy to see the same subscription model given to libraries for free when I had to pay for it. But that's a separate subject.

I would assume if you continue to upgrade content and continue giving access to other tracks or 'selling' lifetime locked into certain tracks it would have to be comparable to a bootcamp meaning thousands of dollars so you could make a profit and the user could continue to receive updates in the future.

For me, though personally if I purchased a subscription for 3 or 4 years I should have a pretty good handle on the material and that would still be cheaper than a bootcamp or a degree program. Quite honestly, for the 400 I spent to have pro 1 year access to all these tracks was an awesome deal and I still feel that way.

My solution is that I take notes and create my own projects based on the learning, so that I have work products and things to reference, rather than having to go back to the video. This helps me retain the information, as well.

I agree with Andrew Chalkley in general: this is a paid service because this gives you access to a lot of information, like actually enrolling in a course online at a community college. You continue paying because you want to continually want to access the information. That is the product.

Certain other membership products (I'll name gold medal bodies as a reference), sell the courses for a hundred dollars or so and then you have infinite access to that product, forever.

Treehouse is cheap compared to taking a class, or even compared to buying an entire course from a competing service, but one of the terms of the agreement is: you pay for the information as a subscription to the website. I can see how you might think it's unfair, and I think that maybe adding a "Buy track" (a la carte) option could be worthwhile for both treehouse and some users, but I don't think that just because you completed a track on treehouse should entitle you to have access to that information anymore than subscribing to http://www.jstor.org/ and reading a few articles as a student should allow me to revisit the website and reread the articles now.