This topic is somewhat like a double-edged sword.
First edge; Nobody points a gun to your head to take a course. (anybody can do what they want)
2nd edge: Being gullible and ignorant can be a choice.

What triggered me to make this post: An Instagram page(dedicated to empowering Nigerian women), asking people to take loans for an online Instagram class TO LEARN BUSINESS, NOT TO START .
PS: The loan will be payed directly to the online professors account, not yours. Just take a class and be in debt

In 2021, with the vast amount of free learning resources and accessible ocean of knowledge on the internet, it marvels me to see people paying for absurd and DIY-able courses. Google, Youtube, Skillshare, Udemy, Figma, Canva and many others are an invaluable blessing to mankind. There are thousands of websites that offer free courses and materials on literally any topic, subject or idea that you can think of. Any form of Information and knowledge is literally one click away and everything is online. The internet has brought so much knowledge to our fingertips but humans will always be humans.

I was on clubhouse yesterday and I saw a room "HOW TO MAKE $1000 IN 24 HOURS" over 300 attendees. I could not help but wonder, why people choose to be deceived? These scams are everywhere, on YouTube, Facebook and I was not surprised to see them on Clubhouse. What marvels me is why people keep falling for this scams, with all the bad reviews and warnings and enlightenment. Truly there is something like a Coconut head.
I believe that in every attempt to make a decision, no matter how desperate, common sense should be applied.
Why do people think making money is as easy as this scammers pronounce? Why is someone teaching you how to make money by selling a course? Same goes for the money-flipping, people still fall for that. It drives me crazy, how gullible people can be.

An acquittance shared a personal experience taking an online course with a Naija mentor. He paid N10,000 for an Instagram class on business communication skills. He then noticed the professor was playing YouTube videos, reading off an online material and sharing a free e-book that he once read. I asked him "why did you have to pay for a course, knowing that there is so much information on the internet" He replied that he wanted a convenient and interactive and face-face learning experience he could pay for.

It appear to me that sometimes, people know the right things to do but they just want to be spoon-fed.
Same goes for people who buy slimming tea; you know the right thing to do is gym and avoid fat consumptions but you rather pay to have a substance do some magic to your digestive system.

Back to what triggered me to make this post. How can you, a mentor, a so called women's advocate, ask people to take loans for an Instagram class? How is that empowering? Is this how people can be desperate for money? The funny thing is their target audience are those women with small business looking for a way to grow their sales and outreach. It is insane!

The crazy part is these online teachers are just middle men, selling free online materials to lazy people. Online professors are cashing out sha. Imagine 300 folks paying N100,000 for a course. Apparently there is a online course on "HOW TO TAKE ONLINE COURSES'' This has to a business venture and people are willing to pay. I used to think people were too lazy to do simple research, although some are but others actually feel better paying to take classes than researching free information. I think it is psychological to a point or maybe it's just choice.

Let me know what you think, feel free to criticize and add your opinion.
Grace is my name.

I agree with you!

A lot of these 'online classes' and 'masterclasses' are nothing but recycled information from Google. Paying for them is a waste if you're only after the knowledge.
However, I think most of these 'mentors' charge a fee as something to make you committed and earn their attention. In their defense, this is a way of sieving those after free information from those who are ready to pay.

The biggest scammers are those who charge you and then line up a series of Youtube links and free pdfs which they deceptively label 'my private e-library worth 400k'. They are the biggest thieves.

They hype their so-called course and bring a lot of jumbled information for you to learn within a short time, they go on to say they're training you to process information faster. All lies! If you complain, you'd be told to keep up and stop being lazy.

Information marketing is full of of these guys.