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Comment by diminish | Hacker News Reader

As a frequent user of Coursera since the very first days I see the following reasons for activity decline.

* UI change made the interface cluttered. Forums are hard to navigate recently. The old simpler html/CSS UI was more fluid.

* too much focus on monetization offers for unharmonious packages of courses as tracks.

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Yeah, I understand they want to try to monetise, but now it looks like you have to pay. They're pushing 'specialisations' which contain several courses and a project, but it's only because I've been using it for ages that I know if I search for one of those courses directly I can just 'audit' it for free.

It's a shame really because I have to explain all of that to my friends when recommending they look at a course "I know it looks like you have to pay, but you can do it for free..."

A lot of courses now require payment. You can sign up for free, but can't take the tests or submit work for peer review, so they are impossible to complete. And you are definitely right about the UI.

> UI change made the interface cluttered. Forums are hard to > navigate recently. The old simpler html/CSS UI was more > fluid.

I disagree. Coursera has always had a terrible UI. The new one is just as bad as the old one, just in a different way.

Yes the old one was ugly. But the new is ugly and slow ... It takes MINUTES to load a forum...

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