1. Eric, it is explained here, debated here, whined about here: https://community.udemy.com/t5/Community-News/Learn-more-about-Personal-Plan/ba-p/78849. Forget about this. It is done. You will notice that the more successful instructors are not worried about this. This is a growing entrepreneurial company that conducts experiments and makes changes as the market expands. We have been through a lot of them over the past seven years that I have been here. Always there are those who don't understand it and freak out. And, it always works out fine. Focus on what you need to do. 2. Again, don't waste your time on this. The sales channels are complex because Udemy is selling all over the world, has arrangements with affiliates and other third parties. You have no control over these. Forget it. Develop your course to be a great course. That is what is important now and that is what you control. Make sure you DO OPT IN to the marketing deals/sales, etc. If you don't you will not make any money here and you are wasting your time. 3. If you have students or an email list, which many of us have, or a blog, you create a coupon code and you send them that coupon code. When they sign up using that code you receive 97% of the revenue. 4. As of next week students who come through organic searches on Udemy or from their ads will give you 37% of the revenue. It is now much simpler. You raised the issue of trust. This is important. When you work with a business partner, and that is what udemy is, you have to trust them. I have watched this develop for seven years. I have never seen or heard of them lying or deceiving anyone. Udemy must have the trust of instructors or it can't function. They know that and they are very open and honest with us. I have spoken to the current and the former CEO personally and spent time with them and other key executives. They are NOT stupic people. They are very smart and they know that to build this business they have to be honest with their instructors. Again, if you spend time on this kind of stuff you are wasting your time. 5. Seven years. You can click on my name and see my instructor profile, as you can with any instructor. I have sixteen courses, all on management and leadership. My overall experience with Udemy is very good. I make a very nice living here. Every week I get an invitation to put my course on another site. I ignore all of them. Udemy is the Amazon, Wal-Mart, the Facebook, whatever analogy you want to use of online learning. All of the others are getting crushed by Udemy and some have already gone out of business. For what its worth, this graphic is my course enrollments by month and by course. The actual numbers are not important, but the trend over the past four years shown here is what is important. I drew a two year trend line because this past year has been a "black swan" event due to the pandemic. We are no experiencing a regression to the mean growth rate. But... you have to produce high quality courses on good subjects. So, get to work!
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