Why Is This a Paid Course?
The Academy Offers Tons of Free Content
The Critical Thinker Academy has over 18 hours of video course content, and over 600 pages of PDF ebook content, with new free video content being added to the Academy every month.
All of this content is completely free to the public, and I want to keep it that way because I think it serves an important public good.
How Is This Sustainable?
Important: The Academy is also my ONLY source of income.
Natural question: How do I make a living giving away content for free? How is a project like this sustainable?
Well, it’s not sustainable yet, but my goal is to make it so.
The revenue model that I’m trying to develop is similar to public television or public radio. Users of the service are encouraged through periodic reminders to pledge a small monthly amount to help keep the service running.
What is Patreon, and How is This Course Related to Patreon Reward Tiers?
The platform that I’m using to manage monthly pledge support is Patreon. Financial supporters of the site become “patrons”, and are entitled to special bonus content that varies with the amount of support. These are called “reward tiers”.
I’m offering access to additional course content on the Academy as reward tiers.
- Anyone who pledges $1 or more per month gets access to the “Q&A with Dr. K” course content.
- Anyone who pledges $3 or more per month gets access to the “How to Build a Compelling Moral Argument” course content.
- Anyone who pledges $5 or more per month gets access to the “How to Raise a Critical Thinker” course content.
- Anyone who pledges $10 or more per month gets access to the “Mind Control: The Art, Science and Ethics of Persuasion” course content.
What Makes These Courses Different?
These courses are all text-based, which makes them easier for me to update on a regular basis while I continue to add free video content to the site (which takes considerably longer to produce).
I’m committed to adding new lecture content to these courses on a weekly basis.
Ultimately, the text for these courses may serve as the basis for video courses, ebooks or self-published hardcopy books.
If you have other questions, please use the comment section below to ask them!