Course consumer point of view

I've used and am still using various video course platforms for my personal learning. Personally I recognized several, generic disadvantages with those video course platform approaches:

• Audio content embedded in videos is not search-able.
• If transcripts are created from audio content (usually done using AI tools) the transcript quality is usually not satisfying.
• The audio track contained in the video recordings frequently duplicate information contained in additional text-based course material. From an architecture point of view this is a violation of the don't repeat yourself (DRY) principle. One either needs the audio track or the text-based info, not both.
• Most people have an easier learning experience with visual content than with audio based content.

Course producer point of view

Right from the beginning the following was clear to me:

• I don't have the aim to create courses full time.
• I don't have the time to create courses full time.
• I want to provide an as good as possible cost to value ratio for course consumers.
• My competence is my domain competence and experience, not video and audio editing.

From a course creation point of view traditional video recordings with audio tracks are sub-optimal:

• Audio track editing of video courses is very time consuming.

From a course maintenance point of view traditional video recordings with audio tracks are sub-optimal:

• Video recordings can get out of date UI and UX wise (cause new software versions) fast.
• Out of date content decreases the overall course quality significantly.
• Cause audio editing increases the time needed for course maintenance significantly the risk for out of date videos increases.

The conclusion

To improve the overall usage experience and mitigate the risk of out of date content resulting in bad overall course quality I decided to use text-based instead of audio-based content in addition to video recordings which is faster to update and more likely to stay up to date.

Personally I'm very interested in improving digital sovereignty (my own, of Germany, of Europe, ...).

Most course platforms are run by U.S. companies which I'm feeling more and more uncomfortable to use (due to various reasons).

In addition a lot of course platforms (especially the U.S. company owned ones) have rather major drawbacks from the pricing model point of view which makes their usage uninteresting from a "time investment to revenue" point of view (the platform provider earns way more than the intellectual property provider does). I'm ok with to hand over a significant part of the revenue as tax to the German state. I'm not ok with to hand over an even bigger part of the revenue to U.S. companies without getting value in return for it.

After evaluating alternatives I came to the conclusion that the UK based PayHip is the best compromise related to features, pricing model and digital sovereignty at the moment. There is no European alternative existing (yet)... I'd consider a re-evaluation in the future in case there would.