Ash ExantusChief Financial Educator, Ash Cash Enterprises · Financial Empowerment Leader | Public Affairs Strategist | Media Executive | Advocate for Economic Equity & Financial Literacy | Champion for Formerly Incarcerated Communities

It’s important to build an authentic community 💪🏾

25 Aug 2023 · 1 min

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In this monologue, the speaker recounts a conversation from about two years prior where they warned that the traditional paid‑course model was on the brink of collapse. They advocated for giving information away for free and focusing on building a strong, authentic community as the new foundation for online education. The speaker notes that by 2023 many creators have adopted this community‑first approach, but the space is now muddied by bad actors and a backlash that sometimes condemns even the well‑intentioned. The narrative highlights the evolution of the industry, the challenges of distinguishing genuine community builders from opportunistic copycats, and the speaker’s own pivot to new endeavors while observing others trying to replicate the earlier model.

Chapters

well, maybe 2 years ago, you and I talked. You were almost predicting the downfall of— I saw it, right? You were predicting the downfall of the course space saying that like, watch, we need to start moving away from paid courses. We need to start giving the information for free, building out a community, and it's going to be all about community. And you were like, like I said, like almost a year and a half ago, 2 years ago, You build a massive— I'm talking about massive. You started throwing out all these free courses, created a massive community. Fast forward 2023, there are some bad actors, of course, but there are some people who are just doing it legit. The lines are so blurred that even the people who are doing the right thing are being condemned. Yep. And you sitting somewhere because you— because you behind the scenes, you told me, yo, I'm on to something else now, right? But, but now a lot of the people are trying to do what you did about 2 years ago