Subscriber growth and revenue are accelerating even as revenue per user declines. Udemy built its empire on a simple idea: anyone could create a course, and anyone could buy one. That marketplace model made Udemy famous and made millionaires out of its top instructors. Now the company is deliberately killing it. In Q3 2025 earnings call, Udemy’s CFO admitted they are “intentionally reducing” single course sales to push users toward subscriptions. The logic is straightforward: Udemy keeps 82.5%

Some companies are exploring entirely new markets: from hardware sales to TikTok e-commerce.

In January each year, Class Central publishes a list of the most popular online courses released by major course providers in the previous 12 months. The most popular course in the latest list turned out to be Google AI Essentials, launched by Coursera in April, 2024. More than 900,000 learners have enrolled, more than the combined total of all new courses launched on edX, FutureLearn, and Swayam in the same year. What’s even more surprising is that (unlike the vast majority of Coursera course