The Dark Side of Skool Masterclass No One Talks About

MasterClass offers video-on-demand classes taught by subject experts and public figures where you can share content, host discussions, and run online courses. Some courses are interactive and include text-based instruction.

The platform attracts multihyphenate consumers, who might take a few different classes on the site. For example, someone might watch a lesson on writing from James Patterson and then take tennis lessons from Serena Williams.

1. It’s a Pyramid Scheme

When John Oliver took down Herbalife and Amway last year, he cited the pyramid-scheme-like structure of their sales models. They ensnare kids with the promise of fast money and full-time pay for part-time work, and then they convince them to recruit other people into their business — the more people they bring in, the more they’ll earn. In his segment, Oliver also referred to other multilevel marketing businesses like Coach Master, which uses the same tactics to manipulate vulnerable young adults and fish for new members.

The company’s pitch is that anyone can learn anything from the world’s best teachers, a claim it has validated with a hefty roster of instructors. Among them are James Patterson, who teaches writing; Dustin Hoffman, who teaches acting; and Serena Williams, who teaches tennis. MasterClass employees assess each candidate on twelve criteria, including commercial potential (“how many subscribers will sign up?”), value (does the subject matter have enduring appeal?) and diversity considerations (is this person a role model for minorities?).

In addition to the expert-taught lessons, MasterClass offers a community forum and workshops modeled after traditional online education systems. These have been successful so far, and the company has recently begun to expand into a series franchise with celebrities telling their own stories.

But the platform’s adolescent growth has also exposed its limits. Its subscription model has a high renewal rate, but its data doesn’t provide much insight into what these subscribers are learning or why. The average subscriber takes ten classes in a given month, and hops around from one to the next. Those who watch Bobbi Brown’s makeup tips might head over to Chris Voss’s class on negotiation, and those who see Steph Curry play basketball might go over to Steve Martin’s comedy course.

2. It’s a Scam

Skool Masterclass is just one example of the new breed of “gurus” who sell themselves as life coaches for money. These gurus prey on people’s insecurity about their own dreams. They want them to pay for their advice, even though the advice is not worth the price tag.

This is the type of marketing that we see in all types of products, from feng shui to cigar stores. It’s an insidious strategy that exploits people’s insecurities and leads them to spend money they don’t have. The most dangerous part of this type of marketing is that it makes people believe that they can’t achieve their dreams unless they spend thousands of dollars on someone else’s opinion.

Founded in 2015 by Rogier and Rasmussen, MasterClass was built around the notion that the most successful people have something to teach us. Using cold-calling tactics, they got authors James Patterson and Dustin Hoffman to teach writing, actors to take up acting, and athletes such as Serena Williams to offer tennis lessons. The company’s instructors are rated on twelve criteria, including breadth of topic, values and diversity considerations, and timelessness (will the class still be relevant in a hundred years?)

But it’s hard to justify paying for a class by an expert that isn’t even that good. For example, the tennis lesson by Serena Williams was criticized for not being engaging enough. It was filled with tips such as “play the backhand of the bigger-chested player,” because larger boobs can hinder shoulder rotation.

A few instructors have a large following, which allows them to attract and retain students, but many have been panned by critics. This has resulted in a lot of complaints from consumers about the quality of the classes and how much they cost. Many are calling it a scam. I think this is a bit unfair. They need customers to make money and it’s the same as any other business model like the NFT rush or running an agency or dropshipping. It’s just another trend that will eventually die out. I just hope that people are smarter than to fall for this and know when it’s not worth their money.

3. It’s a Waste of Time

If you’re going to spend money on a MasterClass, you expect that the instructor will have something to teach you. But that isn’t always the case. Many of these classes are nothing more than entertainment. The class creators believe that they’re putting out quality educational content, but their classes are just another form of consumerism. They are trying to steal time from people’s busy lives.

For MasterClass to succeed, it needs to shift its focus from providing entertainment to offering education. Otherwise, it will lose its footing in the market.

As it stands now, MasterClass’s classes are akin to bespoke self-care: they fill an emotional void by stealing time from our hectic days. And while they may be a great way to learn about subjects like Neil Gaiman’s comfort and tedium in genre fiction, Serena Williams’s backhand tips for big-chested women, or shouty Peloton instructors, the classes aren’t necessarily worth their steep prices.

4. It’s a Waste of Money

When it comes to online education, MasterClass has carved out a niche with its hefty library of celebrity-backed classes. But the company runs the risk of only satisfying consumers who are looking for surface-level insights. To keep users engaged, it will need to find new ways to offer educationally rich content that’s relevant to the world around them.

MasterClass launched in 2015 with courses on writing from James Patterson, acting from Dustin Hoffman, and tennis from Serena Williams. The platform marketed itself as “Hollywood meets Harvard” and garnered 30K signups within the first four months. But the company’s reliance on celebrity fanbases and their ability to bring in revenue hasn’t been enough to cover costs, especially when it came to filming and editing. Courses reportedly cost around $1 million each to produce, including the fees owed to instructors and production companies.

In 2022, MasterClass restructured its product to focus on shorter-form entertainment content. It also began offering subscriptions on a monthly basis to reduce its upfront costs. The change may have been a reaction to slowed growth in the wake of Covid-19, but it could also signal that its core education market is maturing and shifting away from entertainment-centric classes.

It’s not clear exactly how many people renew their subscription after a year of MasterClass classes, but the average user takes ten classes and hops around. Those who subscribe to Bobbi Brown’s makeup tips head next to Chris Voss’s class on negotiation, and those who watch Steph Curry move on to Steve Martin. These pathways resemble the way many of us consume cultural capital, via Learning Annex, TED talks, great-books canons, shouty Peloton instructors, and bespoke self-care as manifested in cigar stores or feng-shui. These lessons are valuable in their own right, but they aren’t the same as a deep mastery of a topic, which is what MasterClass’s most loyal subscribers are seeking.

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