$30 /month feels like a lot to me. It reminds me of leetcode where I would actually consider paying for the service but the price is just so high I can't justify it for how little time I would spend with it. Maybe the price makes sense if you're going through every course on the site, but I'm really only interested in one or two so it just doesn't make sense for me. I'll just learn from other sources.
Leetcode's problem is that the free option is already really good. The premium version's offering just isn't compelling. Official solutions while nice are often not as helpful as the community submitted solutions. Getting access to more interview questions also isn't a selling point given how many questions are already on the site for free.
Lol, it’s hilarious how decent programmers can very feasibly make 300k+ a year, but somehow, a course that’s selling point is to make you more decent is too expensive at $30 a month. That’s literally skipping a single night of eating out.
If you’re point is that you can’t trust the program to deliver, that’s valid, but make sure to make the judgement call AFTER you check out their free content first.
Honestly? I’d argue that they should be charging more. The people who are truly interested in investing in long term learning generally have a higher willingness to pay, while everyone else will balk at anything that isn’t free.
I do technically work as a programmer but I make far less than 300k and I'm generally happy with where I am. I mostly program as a hobby so that's the perspective I was coming from. I can see why they would charge more if this is meant as a professional skills development service where people expect to get returns for their time and money spent. I just thought it would be cool to learn react so I can make hobby sites easier and that's not worth $30 to me.
> "If you're not the customer, you're the product!"
> "Why is the internet getting monopolized by a few media empires owned by a few billionaires!"
Small indie developer: "hey guys I put a massive amount of work into this project, how about you just act like a customer and pay me a small amount of money".
> "Ahhh this is highway robbery! $30 is outrageously overpriced!"
People are insanely cheap with software, even professional software developers. It's an attitude that's shifting but very slowly. The VC backed ad-economy has anchored everyone's expectation that anything above $0 is somehow a ripoff.
The end result is we all get tracked, our data monetized, and the best job opportunities are mostly obeying the rules of a tiny number of elite overlords who can finance "free" products.
Also, people won't bat an eye at paying $40k, $50k, or $60k for 1 year at a university even though you'd probably learn more programming from doing Fireship's classes then a lot of undergrad CS semesters.
It has more to do with psychological anchoring than any sort of economic rationality.
The problem is that I do not have enough disposable income to give $30 to everyone.
The 60k for college is an investment in the future, but more importantly it’s not my money I’m spending, and there’s no replacement for that piece of paper.
Sure there is: evidence of competency. Many people will hire you if you can demonstrate you actually know what you're doing, which a site like Fireship (presumably) can help you to learn.
This fallacy needs to die. It's why many who work in jobs are highly unqualified (they're hired for credentials/connections, not competency).
The problem is; one needs to get to the point in the hiring process where one gets the chance to demonstrate competence. Before that point, all one has going is what's in the job application. Degrees and work experience can be put in there and have a good chance to be acknowledged by whoever does the hiring.
> The problem is; one needs to get to the point in the hiring process where one gets the chance to demonstrate competence.
If you follow the same path as everyone else, yes. A "hack" of sorts I've done for this is to find things to improve at a place you want to work, front-load the cost of improving them via a small demo/report, and then reach out to someone in the company who'd find it valuable and start building a relationship. In a lot of cases, you end up getting plugged in directly and can skip the resume roulette.
There's a ton of wisdom in this quote that I picked up from Derek Sivers via his music teacher, Kimo Williams: "the standard pace is for chumps." There's always a backdoor to get what you want, you just have to be more creative than the other people to find it.
What about backend- reliability-, database-engineering or any other positions, where in order to propose an improvement, one would need knowledge about the companies internal systems, which isn't available from the outside?
At that point, your best bet is to build prototypes/demos of what you're capable of and show data on improvements you achieved for others. The way I'd think about it—regardless of position—is to do the thing that others are not doing (or aren't willing to do).
If everybody is sending a resume through the same channel but you're showing up with a working demo and reaching out directly to people in the company, you stand out. I've gotten gigs by just sending a thank you to people who taught me something indirectly through a blog post or interview.
You have to be human. It's not a process to automate or "game." Just be real with people and you'll be surprised how much easier things get. Very few people do that (especially in a genuine way) and the people who pull the levers know the difference between someone who's authentic and someone who's full of shit.
> Also, people won't bat an eye at paying $40k, $50k, or $60k for 1 year at a university
I'm European, I paid 500 euros per year, and that included laboratories and everything.
> It has more to do with psychological anchoring than any sort of economic rationality.
I really don't understand your argument here. Just because you think it's a fair price doesn't mean it's a good price for me.
FYI I used to spend 40/50$ per hour of algo and ds lessons in the past, or I pay 20$ for french classes and a similar price for chess lessons, all of those over zoom/teams/meets.
I'm not against paying for education, but I don't see the value of a 30$/month membership to do these courses.
I think there are different groups of people for each one of those cases and lumping them all together as programmers is a bit of a generalization. I get your sentiment that the cases conflict, but I don't think it's the same person each time holding that view.
I could see people who are against major corporations being for paying inde groups a premium for less than perfect service, just as people who are against Microsoft and Apple will tolerate less than ideal user conditions in Linux.
> Also, people won't bat an eye at paying $40k, $50k, or $60k for 1 year at a university even though you'd probably learn more programming from doing Fireship's classes then a lot of undergrad CS semesters.
If you go to university to “learn programming” you’re doing it wrong.
Yep. I always say “oh, I’ll keep my leet code skills up!” But I can’t for the life of me reason that it’s a better investment actually building things and by the end of the day I’m too burned out.
