Hi,
My answer is based on my experience with clients in this field. Nevertheless, seeing how this question is about the future, I wouldn't presume it to be 100% accurate.
In the near future (5 years): an increase in the amount of 'players' offering online courses and increased growth of the existing ones (in most subjects, except for those which are already saturated).
Later on (7-10 years): the closing of the smaller players and/or the buying out of smaller players by bigger ones (or companies not in that field but who provide complementary services).
Good luck
There are a lot of online courses out there in every single niche that you can think of.
Most of the most successful online courses either already have a strong following or a strong marketing strategy.
Start with some good content marketing for free and build an audience :)
Universities themselves are getting rid of the traditional learning environment and instead using “flipped classrooms” whereby some of the content is delivered to students online - I experienced this. If major Universities are flipping the script, then I’d say that online courses have a good future. I particularly think that courses online will get shorter over the next few years as people becoming increasingly time-poor. Call me if you have any follow up questions.
My most recent corporate position was as CEO of a student recruitment agency in the higher education space. One of my prior ventures was a successful independent online course business.
There's 2 angles from which to look at this:
1. Traditional education institutions.
2. Online course creators.
For the traditional space, universities and other tertiary education providers are going to have to look hard and deep to work out why they should not be delivering all their courses online, at lower cost.
University (college) is starting to become more and more about the campus experience and the people you meet rather than the coursework being taught.
For online course creators, many coaches, consultants and experts are going to launch their own coures - and fail, because they don't know how to market them or how to run successful online businesses.
The fallback for this will be marketplaces like Udemy and Lynda, where pricing and promotion is largely out of the course creator's control and they have to settle for a lower income in exchange for assistance in marketing and promotion.
If we put the two spaces together we end up in a situation where both traditional institutions and online course creators are going to have to work hard to prove their value in a marketplace that is flooded with competitors.
Online courses are digital - they are made of 1s and 0s. The value of those to the consumer will go to 1 if the course creator can prove they have something to offer. Otherwise, it goes to 0 as information wants to be free.
