Free vs. paid
The pelican is gratis. Everything else will cost you a nickel, kid. (Library of Congress)
We’re living in a golden age in which virtually anything you want to learn can be learned for free.
However, you have to choose your sources carefully. The challenge of some of the free content out there is that it leaves a lot out.
It really depends on the instructor’s business model. Some, like Staci Perry at Very Pink Knits, give you an entire library of free material and hold virtually nothing back. As far as I can tell, the income of Very Pink Knits comes from YouTube royalties, sponsorships, and sales of knitting patterns.
On the other hand, many music instructors promote their work with free material and then sell direct instruction in order to go deeper. There’s really only so much you can offer to someone without being able to provide feedback on their playing.
Then, there are the people who deliberately provide gaps. They are presenting information, but do it in such a way that you are aware that there’s more behind a paywall. “Here are steps one through four. Sign up with your email to get steps five through eight!” Or they give you basic information for free, but the deeper details are in a paid resource like a book or course.
And so on. People sell merchandise and memberships. They solicit donations. They speak at conferences. They sell other people’s programs as affiliates. There are many ways of structuring this type of business, so this is by no means an exhaustive list. (See, there I am, leaving stuff out.)
I believe that it’s important to know what you’re dealing with. If you want to learn from someone or take their advice, understanding their business model will help provide context for the information you’re receiving.
For instance, if you find someone’s free information highly valuable, you might calmly tolerate the ads that make it possible. Maybe you’ll buy their book or a t-shirt.
And when you know that an instructor is selling paid courses, you might get less frustrated when you are following their instructions exactly but can’t seem to get the results that they are getting. You’ll know already that there are some pieces being left out, and presumably they are available in the course.
Some of us need more support with implementation in certain areas. I was able to learn to knit entirely from free YouTube videos, and then I bought a handful of books to better understand pattern construction and technical aspects of knitting. Meanwhile, when it comes to tennis, I’ve regularly attended paid clinics and taken private lessons whenever I can. YouTube videos were not helpful.
When it comes to marketing, I found the endless sea of free advice, tips, and tricks to be overwhelming and contradictory. In order to learn, I vetted a handful of experts who earned my trust with their free material and then bought their books and courses. I pretty much ignore everything else.
For my part, freely sharing what I know has kept me pretty busy. I try not to hold anything back. However, my materials generally lack the specificity someone would need in order solve a problem.
Also, my work is not organized into a sequence. There’s no step-by-step process to follow.
At the moment, I can help someone solve a problem by working with them directly. But I’m working on how I might be able to support people in other ways. What information do they need, and in what order? What skills do they need to develop, and what process will they follow to develop them? All of this needs to be observed, codified, documented, and packaged.
Some marketing experts say that you can freely share the what and why, but you should save the “how” for your paid programs. Or, you can put everything out there, but offer an organized version as a paid product.
I don’t want to overthink it. No matter what, people will need support with implementing what they learn. No matter what, some people will pay, and some won’t.
What I want to do is keep sharing what I know and understand, and in the process I will keep getting better at doing that. Then, I can create more sophisticated structures around what I’m sharing, both paid and free. Fittingly, I’m taking advantage of both paid and free resources for learning how to that.
We can each come up with our own formula for seeking new knowledge and skills. Some of us will jump straight to paid instruction, and some of us will take advantage of the vast array of free resources. In the process, knowing how a given instructor organizes their instructional materials will help you to learn more effectively and ensure that your choices are in line with your goals.
When you set out to learn something, where do you go for the information? How do you decide who to learn from? And if you were to teach something, how would you present it?
