YouTube to roll out creator courses

The Future. YouTube is doubling down on educational content with an upcoming feature that will let creators sell educational how-to courses directly on the platform. If the feature takes off, it could usher in an era of niche tips-and-tricks content to buck the short-form video trend.

Democratized MasterClass
Per Insider, YouTube wants to make everyone a MasterClass instructor.

• It’s rolling out a feature that will give creators the ability to offer fully-packaged educational courses.
• That opens up a new monetization tool for creators that feels organic to YouTube — the platform has become the fully-packaged educational courses to look up “how to” videos.
• Creators can set a price between free and $999.99 for courses, with YouTube taking a 30% cut of revenue (sounds like the Google Play Store…)
• Creators will be able to include downloadable supplemental materials.
• Course topics will need to be educational, with subjects like financial planning and dating advice not permitted (YouTube doesn’t want any lawsuits or scams).

The feature launches in beta next year in the US and South Korea. While the program is in beta, YouTube will have pre-vetted courses to make sure it adheres to guidelines. Other topics could include how long courses are and their level of production value.

With YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki calling educational videos one of the “greatest benefits” of the platform, expect the company to push this new feature hard.