Subscriber growth and revenue are accelerating even as revenue per user declines. Udemy built its empire on a simple idea: anyone could create a course, and anyone could buy one. That marketplace model made Udemy famous and made millionaires out of its top instructors. Now the company is deliberately killing it. In Q3 2025 earnings call, Udemy’s CFO admitted they are “intentionally reducing” single course sales to push users toward subscriptions. The logic is straightforward: Udemy keeps 82.5%

Master Cinema 4D: From basics to pro techniques in modeling, MoGraph, Redshift, and more.

In 2021, FutureLearn gained 2M learners, appointed a new CEO, and introduced close to 100 ExpertTracks.

In 2025, Harvard CS50 offers 10 free certificate courses on topics such as computer science, Python, and AI.

OpenLearn offers 900+ courses on a wide variety of subjects, and they include free certificates & badges.

In Q4 2025, Duolingo announced it would let go of $50M in bookings to reach 100 million daily active users (DAUs) by 2028; a strategy Class Central covered in detail last month.  2026 is its “investment year,” and Q1 was the first quarter of execution. So far, the plan seems to be working. The Expected Results: Low Bookings, High DAUs Duolingo is running multiple tests to improve the free experience: spoken tokens for speaking practice, Speaking Adventures for real-world conversations, and fla